


The Perks of Being a Wallcrawler

by AM_In_The_Morning



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (sort of), Again, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Peter Parker, Dead May Parker (Spider-Man), F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Genius Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Matt Murdock is a Good Bro, Misunderstandings, Not Canon Compliant, Peter Parker Has Issues, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Protective Matt Murdock, Protective Wade Wilson, Secret Identity, Slow Author more likely heh, Slow Burn-ish, Steve Rogers Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro, Team Red, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Uncle Nick Fury, Wade Wilson is a Good Bro, all of them do, not exactly, should have... probably mentioned that first..., they all do anyway, though Pete doesn't really see them that way...so yeah
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26041681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AM_In_The_Morning/pseuds/AM_In_The_Morning
Summary: (PREVIOUSLY TITLED: The Perks of Being a Wallflower/Crime-fighting Teenage Superhero/Vigilante)Peter Benjamin Parker, often shortened to just Peter Parker, is an ordinary teenage boy. He would have been completely ordinary if it wasn't for the fact that two of his closest friends is the blind but equally badass equivalent of Batman and a katana-wielding lunatic, maybe three more possible friends that don't really fall in the category of normal, with a one-eyed menacing man that would neither confirm nor deny that he is his guardian ever since the only family he had left was killed in cold blood.Yep, that went dark pretty quickly.Or; An AU where Peter was never recruited in CA: Civil War but was "recruited" by Nick Fury a couple of years earlier, and also where he's friends with a lot, if not, all the vigilantes around New York.Or; an AU that starts with the classic field trip to Stark Industries trope where Peter's genius is noticed by another genius we all know and love... though that happens much later.
Relationships: Harry Osborn & Peter Parker, Matt Murdock & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Nick Fury & Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Wade Wilson
Comments: 86
Kudos: 664





	1. A [REDACTED] Assessment of Peter Parker

**Author's Note:**

> The alternative title would be: The Story Where Everyone Loves Peter Parker... except Peter Parker.

**A [REDACTED] Assessment of Peter Parker**

**by Prof. [REDACTED]**

* * *

Peter Benjamin Parker, the only son of the late Richard Atticus Parker and Mary Hawkins Fitzpatrick, has caught the attention of government organizations such as SHIELD by the time he was nine when he tried to retrieve Uranium from an African warlord in order to build a nuclear reactor to power up his house and entire neighborhood. Fortunately, two SHIELD agents visited his home and calmly explained to the young boy as to why he can't have radioactive material in the basement. Young Mr. Parker has resorted to much safer energy sources such as hydroelectric power and thermal applications of solar power ever since.

Regarding of Peter’s intelligence, he has been showing signs of an intellect greater than Leonardo da Vinci by the time he was thirteen years old. He has beaten Russian chess champion Valerie Mikhailov in an online competition, passed O-level chemistry exams when he was only seven years old, created several mini generators from scraps of metal and electronic parts, and a self-taught computer systems engineer who is currently the youngest to be MCSE-certified. He had also donned on a suit to fight crime using his recently acquired spider-like abilities along with several gadgets that he invented himself.

The question is, why? Why does a brilliant teenage boy who has the mind of a logician and a scientist would spend his free time around the streets of New York to stop muggers, thieves, robberies, etc. crimes that could be easily handled by the police all the while being shunned and marked as a pariah by many of the people he very saved? The answer lies with his family, or more specifically, his aunt and uncle.

Benjamin and May Parker were good people with stable jobs, a police officer and a nurse respectively, who held high moral values and have raised their nephew as best as they can ever since he was given to their care when Richard and Mary Parker died in a tragic accident. Sadly, adversity doesn’t discriminate between the good and evil.

In what was deemed to be an ordinary night, the family was mugged on their way home, the robber shooting at them even though witnesses have stated that the elderly couple had complied to give what he wanted. Young Peter placed the blame upon himself, believing that he could have used his powers to stop the incident if he wasn’t acting like any other child would have been at the time: helpless and terrified.

This was a defining moment for Peter as he was filled with remorse and the belief that his own inaction led to tragedy, he realized that when someone has the power, they have an obligation to use it for the good. The very last advice his uncle had given him before his untimely death, that with great power comes with great responsibility.

Over the following years, as Spider-Man, the notable events involving him include preventing the Lizard from turning every New York citizen into mutated reptiles, defeating Green Goblin and stopped his reign of terror in the city, stopping the unstoppable Juggernaut, aiding the infamous vigilante Daredevil in the arrest of one of the greatest criminals of New York: Wilson Fisk, and then by last October, celebrated his sixteenth birthday.

Recently, six months ago, as Spider-Man, he stopped the Vulture also known as Adrian Toomes from stealing SI technology along with what could have possibly been weapons of mass destruction. Also recently, he has received several scholarships from prestigious universities such as M.I.T., Caltech, Harvard, Empire State University, etc.

Peter often avoids social gatherings and has very few friends whom he trusts. In spite of his brilliance, he resents being sent to school and prefers to spend his time tinkering on machines and mixing one or two possibly dangerous chemicals to another.

So even though his involvement with the mentioned events, specifically involving some of the world’s most dangerous criminals, was evidently terrifying, traumatic, and extremely dangerous, it was probably some of the best things that could have happened during his teenage life. At least, he spent some time outdoors and got to meet some new people, especially as many of them have helped him with his life, both as Peter Parker and Spider-Man. 

It’s almost unbelievable that most of them initially wanted to kill him. Almost.


	2. Chapter One, part one: A Day in the Life of Peter Parker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A captain, a genius, and a smaller genius

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My "tomorrow evening" is apparently the equivalent of four ish days. I apologize for the delay, a lot of ideas came up while I was writing it so I had to do this and that. Also, this was actually the first half of Chapter One but since it's been four-ish days the last I uploaded, I figured to publish the first "plot point" instead. Enough said, please enjoy.
> 
> WARNING: There is a comment by a character that's quite offensive regarding someone's nationality. It doesn't last long, but still I'd like to point it out just in case. It starts in the next sentence of "It didn't sting as much (and so on)

**Chapter One, part one:**

**A Day in the Life of Peter Parker**

* * *

Most people would agree that high school wasn’t one of the best years of their lives, although not completely, because whether they realize it or not, those years do have their good and bad moments. In a world where uncertainty was always present, it was good to be able to differentiate the good and bad days.

Not his words of wisdom, but his beloved aunt’s.

She had also said that while no one can help everyone, everyone can help someone. Those particular words of wisdom have been stuck in Peter’s mind ever since, along with his Uncle Ben’s “Great power comes with great responsibility”, the words that have been the driving force behind his reason as to why he became Spider-Man.

A fist strikes him across his face as he crumples to the alley pavement.

You’d think that nearly three years into being Spider-Man he would know how to pick his battles.

But what else was he supposed to do? Let three high school punks beat the crap out of a tenth grader?

_But Peter, you are also tenth grader_ , the logical part of his mind says in exasperation. _Well_ , he thinks back, _I was never that kind of a genius anyway._

Besides, he wasn’t planning on being a tenth grader for long. Being homeschooled for nearly his entire life was starting to become too boring, and it was a miracle that he even managed to convince _him_ to let him enter a normal high school life. The acceptance letters as well as letters from universities he never even applied to have been filling up his inbox which already has a thousand and eight hundred thirty-four unread emails. He’d read them all one day, someday, or maybe he could just create an A.I. that could—

“You don’t get to talk to her! You hear me, freak?!” Charles Murphy, a sixteen-year-old teen in a twenty-eight-year old’s body with a brain as small as a Neanderthal’s, demanded. “Hey! Listen when I talk to you!”

While his usual bully was a young, spoiled brat that he’d hide by the name of Eugene “Flash” Thompson, the guy wasn’t physical with his bullying. He was like an annoying peacock who kept flashing his feathers, his wealth in this case, which anyone could ignore if they tried hard enough.

But Murphy? Nope, he was like a gigantic neon gorilla that no one could possibly ignore.

Peter wiped his nose with his sleeve, pretending to be in pain. “Sorry,” He said, not really sounding apologetic, “I wasn’t listening.”

What started as a simple guy stopping a bad thing happening in front of him ended up as a fulfillment of a vendetta by one jealous bully whose ex-girlfriend Peter helped in her algebra homework which was also a month ago.

Another punch hits him in the head.

Jane Goodall had to go to Africa to study apes, all Peter did was get beaten up by members of the football team, which was odd considering he never really thought of Midtown Tech, a STEM school that excels in science and math if that wasn’t redundant enough, to even have a football team—

A sharp burst of pain hits him in the chest as Murphy repeatedly kicks him in the ribs. “Next time, you’re gonna pay, puny Parker! You are gonna pay!”

_God, how many nicknames do I have in this school?_

Peter found his footing and wobbly stood up. He spits out blood, then flashed Charles a grin. “Will a credit card suffice?”

The other two punks snicker behind their leader’s back, promptly shutting up as something dangerous snaps in Murphy’s gaze. The man-ape picks up a garbage can—oh, great, Peter thought as he saw the contents within the can, and was that a dia—

“Seriously? You guys are doing this at eight in the morning?”

They stop. Peter glances at their direction, wondering what on earth could have made them stop, and sees a girl. _Of course_ , he thought dryly.

She was an odd girl, Michelle Jones, pretty, but odd. Normally, no one stood in her way because as surprising as this may be, she was rather intimidating and her eyes that were already piercing enough could pin you right through your very soul.

They also seemed to have the gaze of someone with knowledge and sadness that was way beyond her years, but that was and only Peter’s observation, he knew because sometimes, he had that look too.

“Picking on helpless dweebs again, Murphy?”

Peter frowned. “Now I know you mean that in a good way—”

Murphy remembers his existence and raises the garbage can once again.

At this, Michelle crosses her arms, looking exasperated like a teacher scolding a kindergartener. “You know, a little birdy reminded me that if Mr. Harrington sees even a single sign of trouble from any of his students during this field trip, he’s gonna suspend them for an entire week.”

Murphy faltered, suspension meant he was out of the football team for a week as well which also means an entire week of practice missed, and maybe it was because of his own stupid empathy, but Peter knew that he only went to Midtown Tech because he was forced to by his most likely successful parents who wanted their kid to follow the “path”. Football was probably one of the only things that he truly enjoyed in this school. Strangely but not surprisingly, they were quite common in schools like Midtown Tech.

Murphy curses under his breath and dumps the trash can to the other side of the pavement. He gives Peter another kick in the chest—empathy gone—and leaves with his two friends, flanking him side-by-side.

Then it was just him and Michelle in the alley.

“Thanks.” Peter grunted, brushing dust from his flannel jacket, it was a good thing he wore a light green this time.

“Don’t mention it.” She said nonchalantly. “Better avoid Murphy until the holidays, and I’m not always available to save your butt next time.”

“I was doing fine, thank you very much.”

He didn’t realize she was standing close to him until her fingers wiped a bit of blood from the cut on his left cheek. “Sure you were, loser.” She smirked.

Peter wryly smiled back at her, hoisting his backpack over his left shoulder. They head their way together towards the school gate.

* * *

“Hey, look who decided to show up.” said a voice Peter was all too familiar with. Dealing with two bullies before lunch? His day was _truly_ going well. “Didn’t even know you have someone to sign your permission slip, Penis.”

“Morning to you too, Mr. Thompson.” Peter said, yawning, his indifference only irritating Flash.

He was about to make another remark when Michelle cut him with a dry tone. “Flash, shut up. Your voice lowers everyone’s IQ every time you talk.”

Ears bright red as someone yelled “ _burn!_ ”, Flash shuts up—for a few seconds anyway—until Mr. Harrington suddenly appears and says,

“All right, all right! Everyone quiet down!” He yelled irritably. “We’re going to have some ground rule before we enter: no wandering, no touching on stuff you aren’t supposed to touch, no too many questions—yes, I’m looking at you, Mr. Parker—

Peter internally smiled at the memory of the sputtering collector back on the school's field trip to the Smithsonian when he innocently questioned the authenticity of the so-so authentic Victorian chair. How could they not have noticed the machine-tooled criss-cross pattern on its head?

— _and_ no going on places where you’re not supposed to be.”

Mr. Harrington suddenly paused and stared at every single one of them, eyes narrowing as he spots the members of the Decathlon team. Peter’s hair prickled at the surprising intensity, it nearly reminded him of one particular person’s intense gaze. Nearly.

“One single misstep,” The man continued with unnerving solemnity, “and not a single student from Midtown Tech will be seeing the light of day, or worse, expelled.”

Peter heard Ned Leeds whisper to Betty Brant, “Can he really do that?” to which Brant probably replied with an uncertain shrug.

Mr. Harrington suddenly beamed, all traces of the man willing to toss them aside if they make a single mistake gone, and checked his phone for the time. “All right, everyone.” He said, gesturing them to the entrance, “Decathlon team comes with me, the rest go with Mrs. Warren.”

The lobby was rather crowded at such an hour in the morning, people in suits and lab coats wandered here and there with a tablet or a clipboard in their hand, most likely because some of the employees were still adjusting to the new Stark Tower. Its exterior wasn’t as different as the original one from New York but the new tower’s interior was vastly different.

If the blueprints he reviewed last night were completelg accurate, their security systems had also been modified, requiring overcomplicated codes, bio scanners, even Stark’s personal A.I., and if that wasn’t complicated enough, there were armed security men dotted throughout various floors of the building. At the single sign of trouble, they would move to every strategic point and cover all exits.

Peter Parker wasn’t so easily impressed, it wasn’t the first time he saw such a “technological and architectural marvel” with nearly every modern security thrown into the mix, but then again he had little to no other choice. It was join the field trip or assist a SHIELD mission.

It’s been four weeks since the last time he left his home unless it was for patrolling or to require parts for his new project. Apparently, a certain someone said it was too “unhealthy” for a boy of his age to be so isolated, and when he asked others regarding his situation, they said that it was also “unhealthy”.

_Big words from people who have been basically doing the same thing for years_ , he thought while inwardly scoffing. Plus, he _does_ spend time outside for more than an hour and he gets plenty of physical exercise.

Mr. Harrington stopped at the enquiries desk, the receptionist looked up from her slim-line monitor with a smile. “How can I help you?”

“We’re from Midtown School of Science and Technology.”

“Ah, the Decathlon team who won at nationals?”

“The one and only.”

“Your tour is on schedule from eight fifteen to three in the afternoon. One of our interns will be your tour guide for the day.” The receptionist gestures to a young man with thin-rimmed glasses and dark hair. “This is Chris and he’ll be leading the way.”

The poor guy looked like he had better things to do if his forced smile and fake enthusiasm in his voice have anything to say about it. “Okay, kiddos, here are your lanyards. Please don’t lose and/or cover them because security might get suspicious and you’re either going home or to the big house.” He chuckled to himself, rather awkwardly apparently. When the students only stared, he cleared his throat and swiftly moved to the entrance. “Follow me.”

Chatter started as soon as they started walking.

“Do you think we’ll get to see the Avengers?”

“Yeah, right.” Someone scoffed. “As if they don’t have better things to do.”

Peter knew for a fact that they _did_ have better things to do. Even though that the Accords have gone through a revision and the formerly known “Rogue Avengers” have been pardoned and allowed to come back at the states, there were still complications and adjustments like Captain America and Iron Man trying not to squabble like children for at least a day.

But hey, who knows? Showing up at a student field trip could give them good PR, but then again, just his guess.

Michelle moved towards his side. “What do you think?”

“What?”

“Should I protest against Stark Industries for being a single corporation that dominates the entire market, leaving little to no chance for other competitors?”

“Well, they're not abusing their position as the dominant market, but you know my opinion about protests.” Peter shrugged. “But if you really want to, you should probably also include capitalism into the mix.”

Michelle nods with a thoughtful look as a comfortable silence settles between them.

The tour guide, Chris, led the class to the fifth floor of the building where it was basically a room full of plaques, display cases, and everything else that could be found in a museum. To no one’s surprise when he announced it, it was the museum floor dedicated to the Avengers.

“Awesome!”

“Dude, check this out!”

Most of the students immediately swarmed to the glass cases of the original Avengers’ early equipment like several key parts of Iron Man’s Mark VII, Hawkeye’s bow and arrows, Captain America’s modern uniform (which was rather distasteful in Peter’s opinion), sketches and blueprints of War Machine’s and Falcon’s gear, and many more.

While the students started taking pictures, with the permission of their tour guide who was smiling with the insincerity a preschooler could see through, Peter was drawn to a lonely display case in the far corner that was guarded by a thick, dark curtain. The silhouette of geometric figures shaping an eagle was imprinted on it.

Though the “museum” mostly composed of objects regarding the Avengers, it also included the organizations and people often associated with them. There was Pym Technologies—for a brief time anyway—, the United Nations, the Wakandan Embassy which included Black Panther also known as King T’Challa who’s recently become an honorary Avenger, and then of course, SHIELD.

Peter pulled the curtains back, letting his eyes adjust to the dim lighting, before he realized that he was looking at a Wall of Valor.

The Wall of Valor was something that every SHIELD Academy, or sometimes, a headquarters, had. Of course the new Stark Tower was nothing of the sort, but many agents shared the same purpose as to what the Avengers fight for: the protection of mankind and the belief that they are worth protecting. Perhaps this was the Avengers’ way of acknowledging their sacrifice, especially after Hydra tried to take over the organization a few years ago.

He felt something lodge in his chest when he found two, particular names. Pensively, he wondered how his life would have been if they had never gone in that plane.

“All right, everyone!” Mr. Harrington suddenly announced, gaining the attention of the students. “Settle down now, Stark Industries has a little surprise for us!”

The students exchanged looks of glee and whispers of excitement, wondering what the surprise could be while Peter crossed his arms, a thoughtful look in his eyes. Was winning the Decathlon really that significant?

The elevator suddenly dinged. The students looked over as soon as the elevator opened, the chatter falling silent as soon as the group realized who they were looking at.

“Young Ladies and Gents,” Tony Stark charmingly began, “welcome to Stark Industries.”

“Holy shit, it’s the Avengers.” Someone breathed. Followed by an overly dramatic gasp of: “Oh my God, I can now die happy” and Peter’s silent thought of: _Isn’t it a bit too late for that?_

Grimaces quickly flashed in the two Avengers’ expressions as they stepped out of the elevator. Clearly, they were uncomfortable with the attention and when Stark immediately pulled out his disarming smile usually reserved for the public and Captain Rogers heaving out a nearly unnoticeable sigh, it was also apparent they were forced to attend.

Chris the tour guide/intern related to them a lot.

The two Avengers looked impeccable in front of the others, smiling with kind and eager expressions that they’re here to help and guide the new generation that will lead the future. Basically, it was like a PSA coming to life.

_So you got into detention_. Peter suppressed a smile, caring less whether he was succeeding or not, as the image of Captain America’s “lectures” while wearing that ridiculous outfit flashed into his mind.

“First of all, I’d like to congratulate every last one of you for winning at the nationals.” Stark smiled, giving them a nod of approval. “As a little gift from us, you’ve all been given a chance to be Stark Industries’ first high school intern in a little, friendly competition we’ll be having later after lunch.”

A chance to be in one of the most prominent technology companies in New York, if not, the whole world? The group turned to look at one another with manic grins, excitement gleaming in their eyes. The words “little” and “friendly” meant nothing to the students, well, most of the students.

“Now, obviously, only one person can win.” Stark continued. “No sabotaging of another’s project, and if I hear anything like that during our competition later, you’re out.” His wristwatch suddenly lightened up, beeping twice, which Stark almost instinctively checked.

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion before he suddenly says, “In the mean time,” He gestures to his companion without shooting a glance, “Cap, you have the floor while I go attend a meeting—or something.”

He promptly leaves through the elevator without another word. A murmur of perplexity passed along the students, even Captain America looked rather puzzled.

Realizing that there were still other people in the room, he cleared his throat. “Okay,” He smiled politely and a bit apologetic at the students, “like Mr. Stark said, I would like to congratulate you all as well. I’m sure it’s pretty obvious by now that what you really want to hear isn’t anything resembling the PSAs.” The students laughed, surprised that even Captain America himself found those videos tedious to watch.

“Instead, I would like to talk to you about the technology used during the Second World War, I understand that was the theme for—”

As Captain America droned on, Peter couldn’t help but notice the unease he and Tony Stark shared earlier. Both had pointedly avoided each other’s gaze, there had been a noticeable distance between the two of them, shoulders a tad too stiff, and their confident masks lurked with something akin to discomfort beneath before Stark even left.

Peter furrowed his eyebrows. While the captain’s gaze was scanning the group, he suddenly paused at his direction, a question—and maybe recognition?—in his eyes once he spotted Peter.

The youth simply stared back. This wasn’t the first time he met Captain America in the flesh, well, he didn’t actually meet him _per say_ , but growing up in a place surrounded by agents most of the time can be surprisingly boring. Apart from making acquaintances with the most interesting ones here and there, he often hid among groups or observed the new trainees from hidden corners.

On one particularly boring day, while he was hiding from his calculus tutor in one of his favorite spots in the Triskellion, things became a whole lot more interesting when he saw a tired and snappy-looking Steve Rogers walk into the training facility who then proceeded to beat the crap out of an innocent sandbag.

He had been conflicted whether to approach the man or ask permission first from his guardian. Usually, he never _did_ ask permission for anything but Captain America was different from the rest. Thinking you’ve died and then waking up seventy years later where the world’s completely changed and those you know are either dead or too old to walk? Obviously, it does things to a person.

Peter was younger at the time, but he knew enough that meeting a kid in a highly secured government facility wasn’t going to do the guy any help. So he stayed quiet. Yeah, even his guardian was shocked that he didn’t jump into the opportunity of meeting a national hero.

Although, he did _squeak_ when Captain America realized that someone was staring at him and easily pinpointed where he was hiding. Peter managed to escape though, before he could say anything.

These thoughts flashed in Peter’s mind in seconds. Before their stare could be noticed by anyone, the captain smoothly continued on with his lecture and flicked his gaze to someone else. Peter wasn’t so bothered by the possibility that he might be looking into his identity, after all, he was once told that he had the kind of face people would easily forget.

It didn’t sting as much as it should have. Besides, he preferred it to be that way. All attention brought him in the past was trouble.

“Hey Parker, you’re half-German right?” Flash said to him, voice low enough that the others wouldn’t hear—something he often did when he really wanted to insult someone—but the sneer was ever present in his tone. “Maybe you’ll get to play as Red Skull in this year’s school play.”

Peter bit back a sharp remark, nails digging into his arms. Revealing that trifle of information had been a mistake, he never should have included that in the family ancestry presentation they had in history class.

Out of all the insults Flash could say, this was a new low even for him.

“Really.” Peter said tonelessly, gritting his teeth as the imbecile continued on.

“Oh yeah.” He drawled. “I bet your family wasn’t even—”

“Is there a problem?”

The two teens stiffened at the voice, promptly straightening up as they found themselves in front of Captain America who was looking at their direction with a disapproving frown.

He was about to reassure the man that “no, there wasn’t a problem” (even though there clearly was one) when Peter realized that he wasn’t looking at him in the first place.

He was looking at Flash, who greatly resembled a deer caught by headlights. It didn’t help that everyone else was curiously looking at him too.

“I—I,” Flash stuttered, thinking of some form an excuse, “Nothing, sir!”

“Really.” Captain Rogers repeated. “So you have no problem whatsoever of what country your friend’s family is from?”

_Oh_ , Peter realized, _he heard_.

Well, of course he had heard. Being a supersoldier meant having enhanced senses after all!

Flash’s ears felt hot, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. He chuckled nervously. “I was—I was just joking, sir. Right, Pen—Parker?” He sent a glare at Peter’s direction, promising terrible things if he didn’t comply.

Peter raised an eyebrow at him without turning his head, unperturbed. On one hand, he was tempted to humiliate Flash so that he could finally leave him alone, on the other hand…

Does Flash really deserve to be remembered as the guy who pissed off Captain America for the rest of his high school years?

 _Yes._ His thoughts screamed. _No_ , the back of his mind logically whispered. Internally, Peter sighed. For all how much of a jackass Flash was and capable of being, he knew that the guy wasn’t quite so good at thinking before spewing out the words he wanted to say. Perhaps he had mean it, perhaps he only said it to hurt Peter—

Besides, if he proceeded to deny Flash’s claim that “it was just a joke”, he’d never stop until he got back at him. Although, he could play a little game first.

“Actually…” Peter hesitantly began, looking down at his shoes.

He could hear Flash’s heart beating wildly.

Peter hesitated a second longer. “Yeah, we were just fooling around.”

Flash nodded wildly. Captain Rogers obviously didn’t believe him, the frown was still there pulling his expression, but he made no comment regarding so. “Well, joke or _otherwise_ ” He met Peter’s gaze for a brief moment, “no one deserves to be treated differently just because their ancestors were part of something terrible. People tend to forget that the first country the Nazis invaded was their own.”

There was a heavy knowledge and pensiveness in the captain’s eyes that flashed too quickly. Before the silence could become uncomfortable, he turns to the intern—who was no longer looking so bored out of his mind—and asks him what the time is.

Their schedule for the Avengers museum was over and it was time to visit the lower labs where some of the interns were working on a new arc reactor specifically designed for electric cars.

It grabbed the students’ attention, Peter and Flash’s “joke” nearly forgotten, as they followed their tour guide outside the exhibit.

Flash purposefully bumped Peter’s shoulder as he walked—not hard enough to make him stagger—but noticeable enough to catch Captain Rogers’ attention. Flash realized this and immediately rushed along with the group.

On the way out, Peter huffed out a breath. It was still nine-ish in the morning.

“You all right, kid?”

He found himself face to face with Captain America, an expression of concern in his gaze.

Peter briefly studied the man. His hair was slightly longer than the last time he saw him, nearly unnoticeable dark circles beneath his eyes unless you were looking for it, the same kind of tiredness he saw in Stark moments ago when he left the room.

“Yeah,” Peter said, “thanks for earlier.”

“Don’t mention it.”

The teen was about to go when Rogers said. “Hey,” A question in his voice, “have I seen you before?”

Peter merely smiled in an eerie way that reminded Steve of a certain someone. “No, you haven’t.”

Before Captain Rogers could answer, Michelle called Peter’s name to which he promptly used as an excuse to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do leave out comments and kudos! I would also like to hear your ideas or thoughts regarding this Peter who was "kind-of" raised by Nick Fury. There isn't an established outline I have to follow (obviously this was an impromptu story that I decided to upload just because why not? XD) so I'm open to a few prompts and ideas. See you guys soon!


	3. Chapter One, part two: A Day in the Life of Peter Parker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drones, homework, and a paternal pirate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A moment of silence for Chadwick Boseman who passed away last Saturday. He played one of the greatest comic book characters, T'Challa a.k.a. Black Panther, thank you for bringing this amazing hero to life and may you find peace in the afterlife and your friends and family be looked after.
> 
> Hopefully, Stan Lee's among those up there who greeted you with open arms.

**Chapter One, part two:**

**A Day in the Life of Peter Parker**

* * *

Lunch was an all-you-can-eat buffet piled with so much food Peter never thought could fit on one table. It was a big table, of course, but still. There was roast chicken and fried chicken, roast beef, lamb chops, bacon, fries, sausages, burgers, hash potatoes and tater tots, gravy and ketchup, and for some reason, pop tarts. There were beverages of orange juice, mango juice, coke and sprite cans, apple cider, and the odd drink among the group being juice boxes which felt mildly condescending.

He’s always been a picky eater ever since he was a child, some time ago he could just drink coffee for breakfast, but his fast metabolism nowadays required roughly amount of food that would last a troop of soldiers for three days. So this time, Peter gladly piled up his plate with two burgers and a little bit of everything—except for pop tarts—and took a lone seat beside Michelle. “New book?”

She nearly jumped from her seat, key word being nearly. “Yeah,” Michelle answered nonchalantly.

“You should check out The Graveyard Book next by Neil Gaiman.”

“I thought you’d be more of a classics guy.” She said, recalling the memory of him reading War and Peace in the library.

“Well, I did try reading Sherlock Holmes but I kept falling asleep.”

“The original ones?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s a simplified version called The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.”

“Oh.” Peter said, then shrugged. “I’ll start reading it next week then.”

Michelle nodded in acknowledgement as they returned to their own comfort of quietness, as per usual after a conversation.

She didn’t question the amount of food he had on his plate, probably used to his oddities by now. The first oddity she noticed was him seemingly appearing and disappearing out of nowhere, and she rarely ever not notice someone, it was generally the other way around. But Peter had a terrible lack of presence and no one would realize he was in the same room until he spoke. She was getting better at finding him nowadays.

It was strange though, considering that for all how quiet Peter Parker seemed to be—she wasn’t even sure he could talk the first day they met—he talked a lot once one got to know him.

Not that Michelle really knew him, though perhaps she really does but was denying it.

Time ticked on as the students ate their lunch, all the while discussing their ideas in the contest they’ll be having in the next thirty minutes. Peter could hear their chatter of what they wanted to create—some wanted to build and code a robot, some wanted to innovate already existing inventions, others wanted to create a certain tool that could reduce human effort—which basically was the definition of a machine—etc.

Peter had no qualms on deciding what he was going to make. He was already experienced in the art of making things out of scraps since the fateful day of disassembling his father’s car for the parts he needed to complete his first science fair project.

Lunch soon ended with Mr. Harrington calling them to finish up their plates and follow Chris the tour guide/intern to the labs. Upon entering, Peter turned to Michelle with a smile and said, “Good luck.”

“Whatever, loser.” She says with the corners of her lips pulling into a small smirk. “You’re either going to win or purposefully not win anyway.”

Peter bemusedly raised an eyebrow at her, but before he could reply, a familiar man in a three-piece suit walked into the labs with all the confidence and coolness in the world.

“So, everyone in their places? Good. You all have three hours to build whatever it is you want to build. The tools are all yours to use, but please don’t do anything stupid like pointing a blowtorch at your friends.” Stark cautioned. “Again, if I hear anyone trying to do any kind of funny business, you’re out. I’m not going to stay for the next three hours, but trust me, I’ll know.” He turns to Chris and nods, the young intern nodding back in acknowledgement. Stark checks his watch again, no beeping light this time, and looks at the interns who appeared as tense as a bowstring. “Begin.”

* * *

His idea for the competition was, to put it basically, a flying drone, to which he’ll be using the prototype from one of his spider bots that he often used for recon. It wasn’t particularly remarkable in his opinion, it was just a small drone propelled by four rotors that was designed to mimic the actions of fruit flies—or more specifically, in how they can react speedily to threats and avoid being crushed by it.

The idea had come to his mind while watching flies zooming around the garbage can in the park, which then resulted in a month-long study of how the flies could react so fast and effortlessly evade being squashed, which also included studying the insect itself…which required an organism to study.

Nevertheless, catching those seven flies even though it took five hours was worth it.

As soon as he was done sketching the blueprint of the drone, Peter rushed to the table to retrieve his scraps and parts all the while grabbing a few tools along his way. His eyes glanced at the ticking clock as he started organizing them, then he paused, thoughts quickly flying in his head.

He didn’t really want to win the internship. Of course it was like every nerd’s dream to work at Stark Industries, but doing so would grab attention, which was the last thing he wanted especially if it was from an Avenger. Call him presumptuous but his drone was pretty much advanced and would be unexpected from a high schooler, especially with its 3D-mapping algorithm that could never have been made in three hours.

_Huh_ , Peter thought, _Michelle was right. But is it still considered sabotage if I’m the one doing it to my own project?_

Nevertheless, he no longer worried. Plus, he was already the intern of someone else. Well, research.lab assistant-ish of someone else.

He glanced at the clock, it was barely even thirty minutes, then turned back to his blueprint. Well, he could delay a couple of minutes—or an hour.

Even though Chris the tour guide/intern wasn’t really paying attention to them, Peter still made the show of pretending of having difficulty with his project. For the next fifteen minutes, he kept erasing and redrawing his design while he returned one or two parts now that he wasn’t going to add any more than just one type of sensor.

He observed a few of his classmates and mimicked their behavior to make it more believable—he scratched his head in confusion, sighing every once in a while, bit his nails, as he finalized his sketch and set on to weld scraps of metal and solder wires.

Once he was done with the prototype—it was slightly bigger than the size of his palm, but nevertheless functioned the same—he headed to the computers and started working on a much more basic version of his mapping algorithm. Peter’s eyes looked over to the time—one hour and thirty minutes left.

He spends the next hour writing the algorithm, making sure that it would successfully connect with the motion sensors and camera of his project, and then used the remaining thirty minutes to download the code into his drone.

The minutes passed by and Chris finally announced, “Time’s up!”

Peter stared at his drone apathetically, a small bot propelled by four rotors with a single camera and motion sensors.

Terribly unremarkable.

They each did a short five-minute video describing their work and a piece of paper that was the application form to becoming an intern at Stark Industries. Some of the students like Ned Leeds got so excited that their handwriting became shaky and messy; another even mistakenly wrote their name on the blank underline meant for their contact number. Along with the form, they were given another piece of paper where they could write down much more detailed instructions and notes about the purpose of their invention.

“All right, guys.” Chris said, the first sincere smile he ever had today lightened up his face now that the trip was finally over. “It might take a few days—a week at most—for Mr. Stark to take a look at your projects. We’ll be sending an email to the winner who will then be asked to return and finalize their work using proper tools and materials. Now, let’s all go the lobby where your bus should be arriving any minute. Hurry on, chop, chop.”

Peter merely shook his head at the intern’s enthusiasm to kick them all out. They followed him to the lobby where it was no longer so crowded and found Mr. Harrington speaking with one of the Stark employees—most likely the one who arranged the field trip.

Peter walked by Michelle’s side, tapping her on the shoulder, but when she didn’t respond, he realized that she was standing still like a statue. “Uh, Michelle?”

“Shh.”

“What?”

“Shh.”

Confused, Peter followed her gaze—to Mr. Harrington’s direction—and immediately understood why her focus was on the woman Mr. Harrington was speaking to. “So that’s Pepper Potts,” Peter said with a thoughtful look, “didn’t know she still worked in New York.”

“She’s still the CEO regardless of her relationship status with Tony Stark—and yes, I know you didn’t mean it that way—and it makes sense for her to stay in New York since the new tower which serves as the main building of the company is located here in the first place.” Michelle answered without missing a beat.

Peter stared at her for a few seconds, still staring as it lasted for more than a moment.

Michelle stared back. “What?”

“Am I really that predictable to you?”

Michelle doesn’t answer but huffs good-naturedly, smirking in a way that could only come from her.

Mr. Harrington approaches his students with Ms. Potts at his side. “Everyone, I believe you’re already well aware of who this is.” He smiled broadly. “Miss Pepper Potts, Stark Industries’ CEO and the one who made this field trip possible.”

“It was my pleasure.” Ms. Potts remarked modestly, hands clasped together. Her strawberry blonde hair flowed just past her shoulders, her attire formal and pristine as she held herself with confidence and charm that matched Stark’s. “Thank you for coming. I hope you all enjoyed your—”

Peter caught a glimpse of her thumb and index that was briefly twirling her other hand’s ring finger, he noticed the lighter shade around her finger where she must have worn a ring before, but had travelled abroad before taking it off hence the different shade of her skin.

_She’s engaged with Stark_. He realized, then corrected himself. _Was._

“All right, the bus has arrived, it’s time to go.” Mr. Harrington said. “Once again, Ms. Potts, thank you very much for this great opportunity.”

Ms. Potts replied with her goodbyes and good luck on the students. Unlike Chris the tour guide/intern whom Peter saw dance his way back to the intern labs, she seemed genuinely happy with their visit.

On the bus, he and Michelle wordlessly agreed to sit together. One read her book while the other plucked in his headphones and listened to music. “The Beach Boys?” Michelle raised an eyebrow amusingly when she caught a glimpse of the album. “How old are you?”

Peter quirked his lips. “Not telling.” He remarked, putting on his headphones and briefly making an exaggerated show of enjoying the beat of the music which prompted him a small smile from Michelle no matter how nonchalant she tried to play it.

He stopped when his phone pinged a text.

H. Osborn: _Pete, would you mind monitoring my research station tomorrow morning for a few minutes? There’s not really much to do, just check on the air pollution status and locate the sources. I heard from the news that some areas of the city are affected by the smog. Is it okay?_

Peter thought for a while, recalling his schedule to see if he could make a stop at Harry’s research station tomorrow. There was chemistry homework, a few of the gadgets he has to fix, the new project he’s working on, patrol sometime in the morning… yeah, he could make a stop.

With a shrug, Peter replied.

P. Parker: _Sure, no problem. Do you need me to do anything else?_

Another text shortly followed after.

H. Osborn: _That’s all. Thanks, man. Sorry about cancelling this week’s meeting. I have another appointment at the hospital tomorrow and my dad keeps inviting me to these gala parties. It sucks._

P. Parker: _Well, they do have free food but I get what you mean. See you next Friday then._

Harry replied with a thumbs-up emoji and a note of instructions regarding what to do. Peter memorized the text and turned his phone off. Leaning back on his seat, he allowed himself a sigh and listened to the beat of the music, letting it drown the rest of his thoughts for the rest of the ride.

So far, the events of the day are mostly what happens in most days of Peter Parker’s high school life. Bullies in the morning, lessons till the afternoon, a little socializing here and there with the only person he can stand—who’s also most likely the only one in the school who can stand him—and sometimes, a few interesting things happening in-between. Although, let’s not forget about the events of the evening which are yet to unfold…

* * *

“Good afternoon—wait, is it still afternoon? Never mind—who’s ready to have their refreshing cup of bodily harm?”

The AIM troopers whipped their heads in alarm to wherever the voice had come from. How the hell did this person got past their security system?! They had been absolutely certain that the building was empty by the time they arrived, the employees tied up, held hostage and be _disposed_ of later.

AIM was an organization comprised of some of the best scientists and most infamous arms dealers that specialized in highly advanced and technological weaponry. They used to be the lapdogs of Hydra ever since Alexander Pierce took position, but thanks to Captain America for stopping the Hydra takeover years ago, they’ve been liberated from their chains at last and are free to conquer the main purpose of their organization and why it existed in the first place: the acquisition of power and the domination of the entire world.

And they also have horrible-looking hazmat suits as uniforms that made them look like beekeepers.

But dramatics of one evil organization aside, their kind-of brilliant minds were whirring with the arrival of the uninvited visitor. The shadow of a lean and skinny figure was crawling— _crawling?!_ —on the ceiling, their voice youthful and cocky but toned in a way that suggested they were using a voice modulator.

“Seriously, guys? This is like, what, the third time this month?”

Before anyone could shout _fire!_ Peter flashed his brand new gadget—the Spidey Signal which he definitely did NOT took inspiration from watching Batman: The Animated Series—at his opponents. A distraction which he took as an advantage to steal their handheld weapons and webbed them up to the ceiling—including one trooper he accidentally webbed along the way.

“You’ll pay for this, you skinny little creep!” Snarled the man, thrashing in their wrapped up web.

“Will a credit card suffice?” Peter grinned under his mask, but stopped mid-thought. _Wait, I already used that._ He shrugged, although he did put it in the back of his mind to think more of creative quips.

His fans, though not that many, expect a substantial amount of them in every fight.

“Anyway, fellas—” Peter cut through the man’s next sentence, dodging through the shots and lasers and the cursing in between. “What do you think of the Spidey Signal? Is it too much? This is the first time I tried it out—”

He dodged a laser cannon out of the way.

“—and I’m not really sure if it screams _friendly neighborhood Spider-Man_ , come on, be honest.”

He aimed his webshooters at the metallic crates behind the troopers—giving them a hard tug as it toppled and crashed onto the unsuspecting group—Peter grabbed hold of the rest of the weapons and webbed them out of their reach. “They’re always cute when they’re oblivious.” He sighed amidst the insults and threats thrown at him.

Glancing up at the AIM trooper dangling from the ceiling, the teen hopped up and swung right in front of their face. “So, what are you guys up to this time? Robberies and heists aren’t usually your shtick.”

“I ain’t telling you, freak!”

“Well, funny thing is I was just asking so you wouldn’t feel left out so let me just take this—” He snatched the communicator from the man’s utility belt, ignored the man’s protests, a few clicks and swipes here and there… 

The logo of a silhouetted eagle encircled in a ring appeared on the communicator’s screen. “Suspects at sector fifteen apprehended and hostages are waiting for retrieval at the thirtieth floor. You’re welcome.”

The trooper sputtered. “What?!”

“Oh yeah, I didn’t mention that the hostages are already rescued and the police are on their way?” Peter rubbed his neck, his mask’s lenses looking but not really apologetic. “Sorry, my bad.”

His ears perked up at the noise below the floor along with a humming behind his neck, pounding footsteps, guns clacking, commanding voices being thrown around, and what must be the SWAT team beating on the doors. “Well, that’s my cue.” Peter saluted at the bound troopers. “See ya!”

In less than ten minutes after they got the call, the in-duty captain summoned a citywide force. The NYPD brought everything they had—and one or two other things they borrowed. Baintronics Inc. was one of New York’s biggest technological companies, not as big as Stark Industries—don’t ever tell them that—and owned by one of the most powerful people on the planet who apparently held a couple of strings in the government.

The captain who received the call was a man of few words, so unlike the brash and hot-tempered officer that he was many years ago, with steely blue eyes and platinum blond hair streaked with the lightest shade of gray. Failing to stop the heist would have damaged the NYPD’s reputation and one of its future Police Commanders, Captain George Stacy.

Although, reputation had never been in Captain Stacy’s mind ever since his superior officer announced his promotion. He never wanted the position in the first place, but then as he spent three sleepless nights contemplating it, he suddenly recalled the words of an old friend who said the same thing when he was being promoted to Captain. The same words that eventually changed his mind.

_“George, this promotion isn’t for you. It’s for the people.” Ben placed a hand on his shoulder. “Times are changing. The crime here, the law, they’re being twisted like some sort of maze. You don’t have much respect for authority and you’re damn stubborn, but you’re one of the best we got._

_“The city needs brave people like you, good people, who’ll protect them from those who want to do otherwise, who’ll stand up for what’s right no matter how difficult that road might lead. Do you understand?”_

“Captain!”

An officer’s voice cut through George’s musings. A frustrated sigh bubbled up in his throat though he refused to let out another one considering that it’s only be thirty minutes since he arrived at the scene. Don’t get him wrong, he was damn glad of the anonymous tipper, even gladder that they managed to get here first before SHIELD agents started crawling all over the area. It was that the vultures—the media—was starting to crowd the area as well and reporting to the rest of the world of what every little mistake they had done.

George pushed the thoughts away for now. There were more important things to deal with. He turned to the officer. “What now, Davis?”

“We found this stuck on one of the suspects.”

The officer held a small card, slightly bigger than a business card, with a written note and a red logo shaped like a spider imprinted on the bottom.

The side of George’s mouth quirked up, he blew out a huff, and took another gaze at his surroundings. Despite SHIELD wanting to hoard all the evidence and suspects and the media shoveling dirt on the both of them as much as possible, there were no casualties, no object or amount of money stolen, and little to no property damage.

It was almost too good to be true, but George has already one too many problems on his plate, he’ll take this as a win for now. The officer beside him asked, “Are we going to inform them about this, sir? Everyone’s always thinking he was just a myth.”

George half-smirked, half-snorted. “He’s been around for what, three years now? They probably already know what’s up.” He said. “Even if they don’t, what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

* * *

The sun was just beginning to set, the skies a painting of orange and yellow as Peter swung by a familiar rooftop and let his legs dangle on the ledge. He mightily stretched his limbs as he sat on the concrete, a yawn forcing its way out of his mouth before he could even reach into his bag of junk food from Burger the King.

_BBQ bacon grilled cheeseburger with extra bacon bits and the BBQ sauce drizzled on the sides_ , Peter happily recited as he grabbed the edge of his mask and pushed it up right above his nose, savoring the ambrosia smell of grease and sodium. After long hours of stopping a heist, a robbery on the local bank (again, they really need to install better security), catching a truck from crashing into an SUV, saving a damsel in distress from a holdup, webbing up the thieves of a grocery store whose owner was apparently the leader’s great aunt and only planned to steal cash and nothing else.

 _They would rob the piggy bank but not the cookie jar—talk about nephew of the year: twisted edition_.

Peter chomped into his burger, finishing the last bits of it like a bear who just woke up from hibernation. After the hearty meal, he let himself lean back from the edge and let the noises and scents wash over him. New York was definitely not the cleanest place in the world, even in one of its most secluded sides where he was currently at, but it was home nonetheless.

Forest Hills was one of the quietest neighborhoods in NYC, one particular reason why was that it often used to be the home for retired SHIELD agents or ones that want to start out a new peaceful life. There were probably dozen other places like this unknown to the agents themselves, the reason why Peter even knew about it in the first place was because he and his parents used to live here before they died.

It’s been a while since he last visited Forest Hills. It was a good place to spend time after long hours of Spider-Manning.

Come to think of it, he only began thinking of it as home when he got back to the city a year ago.

Before that, it was wandering here and there, hiding to avoid detection although at the time, he was certain that no one would come looking for him since they were all occupied cleaning the Hydra incident. If Peter hadn’t thought of it that way, he would have been more careful and wouldn’t be found.

But he was glad that he was. Found, he means.

His pensive thinking was distracted by a sudden noise—an unmistakable one of a body colliding with the ground, jeers and haughty laughter, books and a backpack falling with its owner.

“Come on, dummy! Get up!”

Peter hops from his seat and swings towards the direction of the noise. It wasn’t too far, just a couple of streets away, and—there. The teen gracefully landed on a street pole, careful not to let his shadow show on the pavement as he watched the scene for a moment.

_Bullies and a nerd._ He thought with a sigh. _It’s not a neighborhood without them._

One of the smaller bullies—probably their leader—tall and thin with a sneer on his rat-like face, grabbed the younger boy’s dirtied shirt and raised a fist. The other bullies only laughed as the boy cringed his face.

_Nope—_ Peter shot a web at the older boy’s fist, the action enough to make him pause out of shock as they immediately swung their heads to his direction.

“Hi there.”

Their eyes widened, jaws hanging as they stared at Spider-Man who had apparently caught them red-handed. And as quick as the bullies decided to beat up their newest victim, as quick as they scattered and ran off in a panic, though not without trampling on the kid’s backpack.

Peter hopped to the boy’s side who was gazing at him with something akin to wonder. “Sorry about the bag,” He said, helping him up and his things from the ground.

Reality erased the awe in the kid’s eyes, he wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.” He sniffed. “Thanks, Spider-Man.”

“Anytime.”

Peter remained where he was, letting the quietness sink in before picking up a book titled: _The History of Modern Mathematics._

_Huh_ , he thought curiously. The boy didn’t look older than nine, but hey, who was he to judge when he himself looked like he was still fourteen. “You got this from the local library?” He queried, trying to lighten the mood with a conversation. The boy nodded. “You must be smart.”

The boy only smiled self-deprecatingly. “I’m trying to.” He shrugged. “It's kind of hard when your siblings are kind of geniuses. Guess I was just born dumb.”

Peter’s expression was unreadable, of course he was wearing a mask, but underneath that, his eyes danced with a familiar memory.

“What’s your name, kid?

“Nate.”

“Can I tell you a secret, Nate?”

He nodded.

“You know,” Peter began, “I didn’t know how to speak until I was three years old… and I only started to know my letters when I was seven.”

Nate raised an eyebrow, confused as to where this was going but listened nonetheless. “So…?”

“So for the first few years of my life, most people thought I was hopeless and just wasn’t like other kids who were way past one apple plus another apple.” Peter continued. “But… one day, a certain someone encouraged me to just keep on trying. No one’s really bound by the limits they were born with. Look at me, I couldn’t even read until I was seven and now I’m swinging like a monkey— spider, I mean.”

Nate softly giggled at the last bit.

Peter laughed along. “Not my best speeches, I’ve always been crappy at those.” He grinned under his mask, then noticed one of the papers Nate was holding. “You know, if it’s okay, I can help you with your homework.”

“Really?” Nate brightened up at the idea, but doubt and uncertainty clouded his features on the next second. “But, don’t you have other stuff to do? Like catching bad guys?”

Peter shrugged. “My spidey sense is quiet at the moment, plus what kind of a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man would I be if I can’t even help with homework?”

Nate didn’t really get Spider-Man’s logic, they sounded quite grown-up. But if there was the opportunity of spending time with one of the best heroes out there after a really bad day at school, then he would happily take it.

The boy beamed at him, making Peter’s heart light up like early Christmas. “Okay.”

* * *

Laura was internally, and understandably, alarmed when he heard a stranger’s voice in one of her sons’ room. She was only gone for twenty minutes, doing a sudden and rather urgent errand of delivering Cooper’s forgotten project to his class. When she got back home, Nate was gone from his seat on the couch, a note on the table that said: _Went to the library_ but he was instead up in his bedroom, and apparently, not alone.

Laura silently descended upstairs to Nate’s room, one hand ready to call for help if it really was trouble. The door was slightly open, two shadows moving behind, the woman was about to press the call when Nate said something that made her stop.

“3/4 is… 75%!”

“See? Told you, you’re good at math.”

_Wait,_ Laura paused, that voice sounded familiar. _Is that…?_

She slightly pushed the door open, finally realizing who the stranger was. Red and black spandex in a spider-themed suit, the Spider-Kid or something from the news. But what did a superhero vigilante have to do with third-grade mathematics?

“Now, on the next problem—”

“No! I got this!” Nate exclaimed. She never saw him that eager to answer homework before. “I gotta use the Pythagorean theorem, that’s a2+b2 = c2 and then…”

Laura ended up listening to the two happily answering math assignments, she didn’t even realize she was smiling until ten minutes later when Spider-Man said something along the lines of “the American school system” and “you’re way smarter than me”.

She remained half-tempted to call someone, she still didn’t know how Spider-Man and Nate met in the first place or if he has another motive considering her family’s not particularly ordinary. But one look at Nate smiling, she supposed she could let him have this.

On another note, she realized the spider kid wasn’t so bad as the news made him to be after all.

* * *

Peter headed back to his apartment in Queens as soon as the clock struck six p.m.

_“Spider-Man has curfew?” Nate grinned._

_“Pshh, no.” Peter scoffed. “But I do have my own homework. See ya around, Nate. And if those bullies come picking on you again—”_

_But Nate only shrugged with an air of nonchalance. “It’s okay, Spidey. Doubt they’d pick on me after Spider-Man tried to beat their butts.”_

He was in a good mood on his way home, but like most times happening on his supposedly good days, something else otherwise was bound to happen.

Like J. Jonah Jameson’s beetroot face all over NY Square’s jumbotrons.

His voice thundered, probably spraying spit all over the camera’s lenses, as he yelled the headline plastered at the bottom of the screen, “SPIDER-MAN, AGENT OF A.I.M.!”

Peter nearly collided with a street lamp. “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” He yelled back at the jumbotron. Thankfully, no one heard or saw him as he was ranting furiously on top of a building.

Jameson’s voice sharply continued as the images flashed, Peter was slightly comforted by the fact that most of them were too up-close, too far, blurry, and just overall terrible quality. “The neighborhood menace was sighted earlier at Baintronics Inc., helping out A.I.M. soldiers before cowardly abandoning his fellow partners-in-crime to save himself! This miscreant even attempted to crash last week’s—”

Peter glared at the screen. He felt like flinging his arms wide open and tipping his head to back to shriek at the top of his lungs. But as Jameson continued to snarl half-truths and list every last thing Spider-Man had done to worsen New York City which was mostly the opposite of what Peter actually did—stopped a car crash? Purposefully stopped it at the last minute. Stopped a robbery? Was part of the crime but _cowardly_ escaped once again—the anger slowly drained off him. This was certainly not the first time Jameson raved about him, nor is he the first “superhero-vigilante” being raved against.

Thunder rolled off in the distance. Peter sighed, shooting the jumbotron another glare before swinging away to a familiar street. It didn’t matter anyway, even if the entirety of New York was against him, he didn’t regret doing what he did. Though it wouldn't hurt for people like Jameson to maybe at least say "thank you".

He dropped by a few blocks away from his apartment. Behind the dumpster was a secret compartment hidden on a false wall, seemingly inconspicuous as one of its functions was to blend in with its surroundings like a holographic screen that copied its environment such as brick walls or tin garbage cans. Inside the compartment was his flannel jacket, shirt, pants, and backpack. Peter quickly changed clothes and stuffed his Spider-Man outfit into his bag, his senses alert as he did so. He's not letting another New Yorker see him in his boxers ever again.

_What a day_ , Peter blew out a sigh, the fringe of his hair getting long enough to reach his eyes. He supposed he would have to endure another two months of schoolwork before summer comes, not to mention, he has to start looking into college applications with universities that won’t bore him to death. MIT sounded promising, but Massachusetts? Too far from where all the action’s going to happen. Columbia University’s within the city, so maybe he’ll give it some thought, he’s heard a lot of great things too about Empire State University. One of their scientists just made a breakthrough on robotic neuroprosthetic systems.

Peter paused ever so slightly as he walked towards his apartment door, sensing a faint hum prickling at the back of his neck. He briefly closed his eyes, heightening his other senses as he detected a nearby heartbeat, an all too familiar one, and the breathing pattern of a man who was too relaxed to be sitting in someone’s apartment uninvited.

The youth breathed out a sigh before reaching into his jean pockets, his keys jingling, and then unlocked the door. He made sure to firmly close it before addressing the man hidden in the shadows of his apartment.

“Hello, Nick.”

The man raised his eyebrows by a fraction, one hand propped on his chin as he calmly met Peter’s equally unperturbed gaze. He was dressed rather inconspicuously, a beanie over his head, dark hooded windbreaker, gray collared sweater underneath, cargo pants, and a pair of black combat boots.

The silence prolonged between them, one trying to read the other as much as they could. It used to be an ordinary game back then between him and his father, name a person they know and try to deduce them as much as possible. Fury had only started “playing” it one day when he found a young Peter huddled in a wardrobe with his breathing going on in short gasps of air, but instead of people, they would use places that they were both familiar with.

Peter won more often than not, his senses have always been more sensitive even before the spider bite. In the future, he'd realize that Fury would sometimes let him win and explain in further detail as an attempt to lighten his mood.

There were still times that they did play the game, even though it wasn’t as frequent as it used to be.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

Peter’s eyes narrowed in confusion, but instead of saying “ _what?_ ” like any other confused person would do, he said with a suppressed desire to roll his eyes, “I didn’t do anything wrong. But whatever it is, Deadpool started it.”

Fury slowly stood up from his seat. He was a dark menacing figure, a seemingly permanent frown across his rugged features with the gaze of a man who was no stranger to violence. Peter’s mind suddenly clicked, he sighed with the realization. Fury must have seen it on the “news”.

“Look,” He started to explain, albeit tired and hurt by the fact that the man who practically—well, _partially_ — raised him since he was seven years old would even think that he could be working with the enemy, “I wasn’t helping AIM in any particular way—”

Fury raised a finger, a silent gesture that commanded quietness. Although he hated being treated like a child, Peter stopped but not without huffing a breath. He waited for the man to continue. However, he suddenly turned the other direction with his gaze still lingering on the teen as he walked towards the refrigerator. He opened it, revealing its little to no contents at all. “Leftover pizza.” He said with a blank expression. “Really.”

Now Peter was and truly confused. “What?”

“Now, what the hell is this?” Fury reached into the back of the fridge, pulling out more leftover food, one Chinese take-out in particular.

Peter’s eyes flicked back and forth to the food and to his guardian. “Fried rice?” He answered, somewhat hurriedly.

“And how long has fried rice been in the fridge? Three days?”

The teen scoffed, a bit too exaggerated on his part. “No.” He crossed his arms. “One.”

“Day?”

Peter paused. “Month.”

Fury rolled his eye, muttering something under his breath before closing the fridge. “Last time we spoke, you wanted to be legally emancipated. Because you’re apparently already responsible and can take care of your own well-being.” Peter made no comment on that part, preferring to remain where he was standing with his arms crossed and a frown on his face. “Responsible my ass if you don’t even know about food poisoning.” He walked back to where he was sitting a minute ago, picking something that was hidden behind the coffee table. “I picked up some groceries along the way. You ought to thank a certain _dead_ person for that idea.”

_Phil_. Peter smiled for the first time since arriving, a little quirk on the corners of his lips that he tried to suppress. Before he could dwell on that thought, he turned his attention back to the man who was reaching into the grocery bags. Potatoes, lettuce, packs of beef and steak, hot dogs, soup cans, cheddar cheese, a loaf of bread—

“Why are you here exactly?”

Fury raised a finger. Again. “Dinner comes first.” He said, simple as that. “Know how to cook?”

Peter opened his mouth to answer.

“Of course you can, you’re responsible. Start slicing these potatoes.”

Peter closed his mouth, accepting the potatoes wordlessly. He thought hard of something, anything, that would get him the last word.

His mind came up with nothing.

* * *

“How was the field trip?”

Peter looked over to Fury who was sitting opposite to him. It was a seemingly innocuous question, but if living with the man for almost a decade taught him anything, it was that he wasn’t necessarily the kind of person who did something without reason.

He swallowed a spoonful of stew before answering. “It was all right, I guess.” He said. “Mr. Stark definitely upgraded his stuff, the man never seems to stop inventing. Captain Rogers looks like he’s losing some sleep though, both of them do anyway, but the rest of the field trip was all right. Did you know the company’s developing electric cars? Its source of power must be based on arc reactor technology. I got my daily cardio if you’re also wondering, stopped a few bad guys here and there, thieves, muggings, helped a kid with his homework—”

“And assisted a SHIELD mission, after tipping the NYPD,” Fury said, “though I vividly recall you saying that you’d rather share a bunk bed with the Juggernaut before such a thing happens.”

“Well, my afternoon schedule was quite empty so I eventually figured: why not?”

Fury snorted, taking a sip from his mug of tea. “So?”

“Not that fast.” Peter smiled by a centimeter. “I take you didn’t come here all the way from the other side of the world just to criticize my eating habits?”

“No, I suppose not _only_ that.” Fury replied, as if he already knew that the conversation would lead to this particular topic at some point. “But is it that hard to believe that maybe I just came here out of the goodness of my heart?”

Now it was Peter’s turn to snort. “Yeah, right. Since when are you nice for the sake of being nice?”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“I won’t.” The teen said nonchalantly. “Doesn’t stop me from being curious though.”

“I’m here on SHIELD business.” Fury said. “That’s all you need to know.”

Apparently, that last statement might just ring true.

The man wasn’t always in SHIELD business nowadays, not since the whole world thought Nick Fury was assassinated a couple of years ago. The gears and cogs of Peter’s mind turned, his mind’s eye depicted a hologram of the day’s events, the Stark Industries Field trip—Tony Stark and Steve Rogers entering the Avenger exhibit and Stark leaving when his watch beeped with what must have probably been a notification from someone that he couldn’t ignore. It was merely a guess, however, so Peter made no comment on the subject.

He lifted a shoulder as a shrug, taking another bite off his last remaining potato. “Must be that bad if you had to come yourself.”

“Hm.”

“I suppose it has to do something with AIM?”

“You were "assisting" the mission.” Fury said. “Tell me what you think of the situation so far.”

Peter pondered for a moment. “Robberies and heists are unusual for a terrorist organization that focuses on technological weaponry.” He carefully began. “Launching an assault on a high-profile company more so, and it wasn’t even at the dead of night where their chances of being caught is lower. Their motivation for the heist was also unclear. They weren’t trying to steal money, not even the company’s tech, if anything, they were trying to destroy it. But why Baintronics Inc. of all places?”

Peter’s last sentence was more of a statement than a question. He looked up to Fury’s one good eye and found that he suspects the same.

“You think their company is doing something illegal.”

“Perhaps so,” Fury sipped from his tea, “perhaps not.”

“If you’re worried about me sniffing my nose where it doesn’t belong, don’t.” Peter reassured. “I’m pretty busy myself. Besides, you got the Avengers to do your bidding.”

Fury dryly stared at him but didn’t confirm nor deny his statement. Helping both Stark and Rogers clear the mess from what the media called as “Civil War” for the past few years had been one massive headache, and that was before one Secretary Ross started interfering which made things all more complicated. It always is, however, whenever politics is involved.

“How are you?” Fury asked all of a sudden, throwing Peter off guard.

The youth furrowed his eyebrows at the question, but knew why he was asking it in the first place. After all, this would mark the eleventh month since his last… episode. “Fine.” He answered, not elaborating any further. However, he did confide on one thing. “It’s just sometimes, it’s a lot less now than before, but… sometimes, I just don’t want to eat.”

It was more than what he ever said to the therapy session he went to. Fury nodded, satisfied and rather relieved that his young charge confided. “Have you taken the doctor’s advice?”

“I bring snacks here and there. One of the—other guys—is teaching me meditation.” Peter said, his voice quieter compared to a minute ago.

“Did you—”

“I haven’t been “sick” in a long time.” Peter snapped, fist clenching on the table. “I’m better now.”

Fury remained unperturbed, internally, he understood why it was a quite the sore subject. He’s met many people who aren’t so fond of the idea of being looked after by others, and perhaps, his own self included. But Peter’s case… well, it was slightly different.

“I know.” He calmly said, which also seemed to calm the teen’s own nerves. “You Parkers have always had a habit of worrying certain people.”

Peter smiled, half amused and half self-deprecating. “Sorry.” He said afterwards. “Thanks for everything.”

“Don’t mention it.”

They spent the rest of dinner in other topics of conversation, sometimes skirting around the edge of Fury’s “SHIELD” business since Peter’s curiosity—whether he was interested at all or no—just could never seem to be satisfied. Peter mostly talked about his projects and ideas regarding his gadgets without outright stating it, the decreasing rate of crimes in various areas of New York without directly mentioning the “other guys”, while Fury remained conversational in a way that was similar to his, only that, once dinner was done, Peter realized he never revealed anything at all.

A soft tap of pitter-patter poured outside, lightning flashing in the distance as thunder drummed the skies. A storm had just begun to brew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some seeds have been planted in this chapter which made me quite worried if it made the story a bit... confusing. Anyhow, a certain Batman and lunatic is going to appear in the next one.
> 
> However, the next one might take more than a week since I got homework that's on due by next Friday. Plus, I have to get back to studying for upcoming entrance exams. *sigh*.
> 
> Fun fact:  
> -The flying drone that was inspired by fruit flies is actually a real thing invented by Mihir Garimella who won during the Google Science fair a few years ago. He plans on using it for rescue like in the aftermath of a natural disaster such as earthquakes, it can be used to search for trapped survivors.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Do leave kudos and your thoughts about the chapter, and if you have any suggestions or prompts, I'll be happy to hear about it :)


	4. Chapter Two: Visitors, Old and New, Come and Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A cat, a spider, and an uncommon fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE FORGIVE ME, I know I said DP and DD are going to be in this chapter but I decided to just split it because one, I got busy with studying (my love-hate relationship with math is doing fine thanks for asking). Second, I got an impacted tooth removed. Third, I've been sick, still is, and it apparently sucks (nothing serious thankfully). Fourth... I think that's about it actually.
> 
> And with that, it's very likely it's going to take me more weeks or so to finish the entire chapter two, hence why I decided to split it. This won't be as long as the two-part Chapter One sadly, but good news, I might be able to update faster on the next chapter. That is, if being sick doesn't get in the way.
> 
> Without further ado, let's get on with the story.
> 
> (Also, the comments were previously being moderated because two, probably bot accounts, made very inappropriate comments on the previous chapter.)

**Chapter Two:**

**Visitors, Old and New, Come and Go**

* * *

_"How are the Allans?”_

_“Settling in their new home. They haven’t visited New York ever since Toomes’ trial.”_

_“I see.”_

_There was a nearly inaudible sigh behind him, Peter focused on drying the dishes anyway. “You did what had to be done.” Fury said. “Toomes made his choice long before you decided to stop him.”_

_A pause, Peter titled his head, just enough to show he heard but wasn't really listening—or letting the words sink into his mind. “I know.” He quietly said. “Just wish I could have… I don’t know, done something more?”_

_“Other than bringing down a plane and saving the man who hijacked it?”_

_Peter huffed at that, but perhaps he had a point. He wasn’t responsible for the choices other people make, he knew that by now—struggling to actually pound it in his head, maybe—but…_

_A chair scraped the floor, Peter turned to see Fury had stood up with his phone in his hand. “I have another business to attend to.” He said. “Can’t stay in one place for long. And Peter—”_

_Peter held up his hands. “Yeah, yeah, no friendly nosy neighborhood Spider-Man.”_

_Although, both of them knew that there was still a likely chance of him being_ that _._

* * *

Peter woke up early the next morning by the sound of the apartment door softly closing. He fluttered his eyes for the first few seconds, a beam of light slipped past the closed curtains of his window, conveniently hitting his right eye. He noticed two things. One, a blanket was laid on top of him. Second, there was another thing sitting on top of him.

“Try shedding on the bed. I dare you.”

“ _Mrrow_.”

Peter closed his eyes, muttering curses in mixed languages, as well as for not realizing last night of Fury’s other motives for visiting, apart from being nice. A soft paw rubbed the tip of his nose, the thing on his chest meowed impatiently as if it was telling him to “wake up, get me food, small human”.

Peter breathed out a long sigh. It was a good thing it was a weekend. He slowly rolled to his side, the movement causing Goose to hop off and wait at the foot of the bed, his green eyes wide and expectant. Peter raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you even eat normal food?”

The alien-cat meowed as if offended.

Of all the pets Fury could keep over the years, he chose one that was the embodiment of chaos and destruction—and not from Earth no less. No one would believe him but he swore that cat got him in trouble more than just a couple of times—especially that one time when it pounced all over the helicarrier’s control panels and Maria thought it had been his doing. You try hacking into the system one time and everyone thinks you’re the one responsible for the next three cyber-attacks over the next few weeks.

Peter blearily gazed at his bedroom: blue walls, midnight blue ceiling with constellations and galaxies he painted on a boring day. A one organized mess. Books both fiction and non-fiction, old and new comics on a bookshelf above his desk, a few band, movie, scientist posters plastered on the wall here and there, some of his jackets hanging loosely on the back of his chair, yada, yada.

It would have been a typical teenager’s room if it wasn’t for the mask lying haphazardly under a soldering iron stand along with scraps of parts and electronics piled on top of his desk— and the suit he hid behind a compartment in his closet. His laptop, which usually had the SHIELD logo flashing on the screen, was elevated on top of another adjustable stand—three post-it notes stuck to the corner of its monitor that said: _college applications deadline by next month_ , _Spider-Jeep: Good idea or GREAT idea?_ , and—

"Harry's research station." Peter mumbled under his breath, his eyes were about to fall asleep and he would have gone back to bed if it weren't for Goose's tail waggling in front of his line of sight. The teen batted it away, shooting the creature another annoyed look before finally pushing his legs up.

Goose followed him to the kitchen, climbing on top of a cupboard as he prepared his breakfast. Idly, he noticed the envelope of cash pressed under the books in his bedroom. His supposed “allowance” for the rest of the year, although it was more like a salary since he was arguably a part-time SHIELD agent— _arguably_ —if such a thing exists and wouldn’t be instead called as child labor. Nevertheless, Peter didn’t want to always rely on Fury for his finances, he could find somewhere else to earn decent money for his _other_ expenses.

He wondered if his decision to refuse the chance on a Stark Internship was unwise and too hasty on his part, but interns generally don’t get paid, let alone when they’re still in high school. Even if he _did_ get paid, his identity could be compromised. After all, he did have the habit of appearing and disappearing out of nowhere—or so he’s told.

Peter fried three strips of bacon and cracked an egg on the frying pan, the sizzling noise fascinating Goose, while grabbing two slices of bread and throwing them into his Darth Vader-themed toaster—in his defense, it was on sale and he _needed_ it, same goes for his R2-D2 and C-3PO salt and pepper shakers.

The morning was still quite early. On the far distance, if he listened close enough, the NY streets were noisy as per usual, neighbors on the opposite building gossiping at who’s cheating on who, and the air smelled of cat and one that was getting ready to pounce at the frying pan.

Peter swiftly turned off the stove and swooped the pan out of the alien-cat’s reach. They glared at each other, hissing and scowling respectively. Before either of the two could start, Peter’s phone binged with a notification from a video live-streaming online—and there were only a few channels he had his notifications turned on to, ironically one of them was his _biggest_ fans.

With his icy cognac eyes still on the living embodiment of chaos’ amber ones, Peter reached for his phone in his pockets and scanned the screen—his eyes widened.

_MOORE APARTMENT COMPLEX EXPLOSION_

The Daily Bugle was live at the location, a reporter wildly gesturing and struggling not to panic about the increasing flames around the fourth and fifth floor. The reporter was yelling something about an explosion that erupted out of one of the apartment rooms, roughly ten minutes ago before the flames had swallowed the rest of the room and started descending towards the upper floors.

Peter switched to the modified radio scanner encrypted on his phone, the police calling nearby officers around Seventh and Eighth Avenue for backup—there were still a few people within the building trapped, the exits either blocked or leading to the seemingly inescapable fires.

Like a switch flicked on, Peter set into motion—while Goose had suddenly teleported on the table and was happily munching on his breakfast.

Frying pan forgotten, the teen dashed into his bedroom. Slapping his webshooters onto leather-like bands on his wrists, he then grabbed his mask, putting it on over his head as he half-blindly reached into his closet for his costume. By the time the toaster popped up his two slices of bread, Peter was in full suit—there was just one problem.

Goose wanted to come.

“No—No! I don’t care what Fury told you, you’re staying here unless you want to be barbecued!”

“ _Meow!_ ” Goose argued back which could mean anything from _Do I look like I give a crap?_ To _I am still hungry!_

Cats. One of the universe’s greatest mysteries.

He didn’t have time to deal with them either, alien or otherwise. “I’m leaving whether with you like it or not.” He sternly told Goose, not wasting another second as Peter turned and lunged out of the open window—for a conspicuous figure in red and black who just jumped out swinging into the air, thankfully none of the few early risers on the streets even glanced at his direction.

The built-in augmented reality display system in his mask’s HUD conjured a hologram of the Daily Bugle’s ongoing stream—both police and fire fighters were struggling to take control of the situation. On the other side of his line of vision, a blueprint of the apartment complex appeared, he would have to scan for life signs upon arriving so he could easily pinpoint their position.

His phone buzzed in his utility belt, Peter hastily reached for it as he swung. _Call from H. Osborn_.

_Ah crap._

“Pete, good news!” Harry’s delighted voice greeted him. “I can meet you at the research station this morning.”

“That’s—great!” Peter tried not letting the exertion from swinging without breakfast creep into his tone. “But I—uh, I think I’m gonna be late. There’s a bit of a traffic.”

“What? But it’s only 6:30.”

“Yeah, there’s a fire in Eight Avenue—or something. They probably closed up the roads, and I only just got up because I stayed up late dealing with applications.”

Not a lie, not the truth either.

But he didn’t want to disappoint his friend any further—Harry’s been sick a lot lately, this was probably the first time in a couple of weeks since the last they worked on their projects for the NY Science Fair. “What about before lunch? I can meet you at the café.” Peter quickly added.

“Wait, let me check something—” He could hear a few keyboard taps here and there, Harry probably checking his schedule for the day. “Yeah, that works too— _all right!_ —I gotta go. See ya later, Pete.”

Peter let out a sigh once the call ended. Hopefully, this won’t take _after_ lunch.

Nearly four minutes into swinging, he could finally see the apartment complex. Zooming in on the location, the fire was no longer burning as brightly moments ago, but if there were still people within the building, they could easily suffocate and die from the thick, dark clouds of smoke inside.

On the ground, a small crowd gathered apart from policemen and fire fighters—the police pushing the crowd away from the fiery building while the firemen struggled on their mission to both quench the flames and rescue the trapped people within. They were thankfully succeeding on the latter—seeing three firemen exiting the building with civillians by their sides.

Peter tapped the right side of his mask, his lenses retracting as the HUD displayed analysis of the interior building. A signal popped in his vision, coming from the sixth floor. Good, the fire hasn’t done much damage there yet—

A scream tore from a woman on the ground, she was forcefully pushing past a fireman—not quite succeeding but not deterred by it either. "My baby! My baby’s still in _there—please!"_

_No time for a plan._

“Look! Up there!”

Peter aimed his webshooters at the building’s rooftop edge, angling his swing in a direction that would push him right into a vacant window of the sixth floor. Peter shot his feet forward, the web breaking as soon as he crashed into the glass.

Silence befell upon those who watched, while the rest rushed off their feet, the noises around them quietened in an eerie ring. The fireman and woman’s eyes weighed on the burning building, fear and hope clashing in their expressions. One second, two seconds, three seconds...

_BOOM!!!_

The woman fell with a cry, wailing. But as soon as the defeaning sound quietened, a figure in red and black shot out of the window, protectively clutching a bundle of blankets close to his chest.

"She's okay..." Peter huffed, "She's okay..."

The woman immediately rushed to him the moment his feet met the ground. Her fingers, trembling yet gentle, peeked into the blankets and with tears down her face, turned to him with a watery laugh. "Thank you... thank you. God bless you, thank you…”

The fireman by the woman's side earlier ago had returned and guided her and her baby to a safer place, the man looked at him with a curious yet wary expression, but then he nodded. Peter merely nodded back.

It was becoming difficult to breathe through the mask but that was a problem for later.

There was something else in there, he wasn't yet so certain what but his senses were prickling the back of his neck like sparks of electricity. His mask suddenly displayed a signal coming from the building, analysis running on the corners—a concentrated heat signature, steadily increasing—

"HEY YOU!"

Police officers angrily trudged to his direction, the one in the middle furiously pointing a finger. "Y'er coming with us, freak—"

A shrill scream resounded from the building, halting the policemen and prompting Peter to save their threats for later. “I’m going.”

The officer hesitated, eyes flicking to the building and then to Peter. He cursed under his breath and grudgingly demanded, “Get back here after you’re done!”

Peter shot a web onto the window. “I’m not coming back, chief!”

* * *

Parts of the upper floor were crumbling.

Tendrils of smoke danced around burning furniture, the fire tearing through every part of the room as Peter looked for the civilian. The HUD of his mask was flickering back and forth, prompting Peter to turn it off and see in his normal vision instead—it wasn’t built for high temperatures, well at least, not yet.

Another scream echoed, Peter whipped his head at the same moment his senses blared like an alarm to his side. _Odd_ , he thought curiously at the back of his mind. While he hasn’t yet uncovered how his “precognitive senses” really work, he knows that they would often warn him of danger—not… this.

_Unless_ …

There was a man in the corner of the halls covered in blankets. Peter rushed to his side, “Sir—” It was getting difficult to breathe, “Sir, I’m getting you out of—”

His words drowned in his mouth. It wasn’t a man, or a person even, but a decoy shaped like one. A recording was stuck to it, replaying the scream Peter heard moments ago again and again—but that wasn’t his main concern. Right beside the recording was a contraption of wirings, buttons, and numbers running in bright orange. His chest filled with dread.

_Bomb_.

Peter unconsciously took a step back, but before he could act on his blaring senses to run—his mind caught up with his instincts. _Think, boy! Think!_

The bomb still had fifteen seconds left to detonate. There was a window ten feet away from him, his position was in the sixth floor, high enough to throw the bomb high up into the air.

It was a dumb idea—risky even—but he didn’t have any other smarter alternatives for that matter.

Peter shot his webshooters at the contraption, a string of webs connecting his wrist to the bomb. Flames stung his body as he ran with a speed that would have shamed an Olympian—this would be the third window this morning he’d crash into—and with his unoccupied hand, the young vigilante swung himself up into the rooftop.

“Here goes nothing—” Peter grabbed both hands on the string of webs, pivoting with a force that would hurl the bomb high enough into the air.

He spared a moment to take one last look at the numbers— _seven seconds_ —just as he launched it into the sky, and just to make sure it’d detonate before it came back to the ground—he fired multiple webs concentrated into small spheres that roughly resembled bullets at it.

The contraption explodes mid-air with bits of debris flinging into every direction. Below the ground, the people paused at the sudden explosion—some starting to panic, some looking wildly around, but other than such, no one was hurt. The firemen had reached the upper parts of the building, nozzles extinguishing what’s left of the dying fire. The commotion on the ground was no longer as chaotic when he arrived and so far, there were no nearby threats that warned his senses.

Taking it as his cue, Peter left the building, swinging to a couple blocks away that was far enough for him to avoid the police, and vice versa.

Once he landed on an alleyway—quiet, safe, and no one else there—the teen huffed out a relieved breath, pushing his mask just above his nose as he gasped slowly and heavily. _What the hell was that?_ His mind whirred in confusion, thoughts flying in and out of his head.

A bomb planted in an apartment complex, hidden and disguised as someone who needed help—why else was the screaming track in there in the first place? If he hadn’t got there in time, what would have happened?

He knew, of course, but Peter was more curious of the question why?

His musings were cut by a flicker in his mask’s HUD, it was glitching—possibly from the damage in the fire—but he could still read the title of the message, only that, it was an unknown number. Added to that, the message was just as empty… or strange.

_Good work with disabling the bomb, but you panic too easily, and panicked men are just as the equivalent of dead ones._

Peter frowned. _How did they get this number?_ Then he froze, did that mean—no, he used two different numbers. One for his “associates”—the one connected to his mask—and the other one he uses as Peter Parker. His identity wasn’t compromised thankfully, but now that left the unknown messenger. That person, whoever he or she was, had been expecting him to respond to the fire.

The teen ran a hand over his head. The available data wasn’t enough to make a proper conclusion, and no matter how he thought of it in different angles, he was yet to figure out why.

* * *

As he found his way back to his apartment, using a different route and checkpoint from yesterday where he has to switch clothes and walk by foot back home, Peter decided to save his thoughts for later. He would have to investigate during patrol, but if the mysterious messenger wasn't going to contact him any further, then he'd leave it be.

Nevertheless, the fact that he was being watched remained, and the last time it had happened, he got captured by Hydra before Maria Hill got to him in time. Although that was a story for another day.

Peter checked his watch. _7:04_ _a.m._ , there was enough time to make repairs and review the blueprints for his project later at Harry's station. And breakfast too. _Wonderful_ , he happily thought. But that seemingly happy thought ended the moment he entered his apartment.

It was a wreck.

Instinctively, he checked for signs of forced entry or stolen belongings. The room was completely covered in scratches, the couch, the coffee table, the books on the living room were torn apart—if he had lingered on the sight a second longer, he would have sobbed—his bedroom was thankfully unharmed, he had built it a nearly invisible lock that was often found in highly-secured banks, but his mind immediately halted when he realized the suspect was still in the room.

" _You..._ "

Goose only hissed back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, I really am sorry I couldn't fulfill my promise (take care of yourselves by the way, EAT YOUR VEGGIES, DRINK WATER, REST is also important and spending nearly two whole days in front of a laptop while being sick and a toothache is unhealthy or so they say) and hopefully, I can write the next chapter with Peter's other "associates" FINALLY.
> 
> Once again, thank you so much for reading. Leave kudos, your thoughts on the comments (the prompts is still open btw), and see you all next time!


	5. (Not a chapter) Peter's Suit

Note: This is NOT my artwork but a color-edited version of Max Kay's Spidersona (https://www.instagram.com/maxisdrawing/?hl=en). I found this amazing design while browsing for ideas of Peter's alternate suit (because I thought since this story is in an alternate timeline so why not XD).

Another reason why I decided for Peter to have an "alternate suit" is to make him stand out from his usual depictions of red and blue (and to better suit Team Red heh) hence why the previous chapter's description of his suit was edited. I apologize for this change and the confusion it caused but then again, I did publish this story in a whim and should have at least made a little planning. Though I can promise you that this will be the last "sort-of-major change" in the story. I'm not turning this one like my _other_ story (heh). 

Also, I'm no longer sick (yay).

But due to a mild case of writer's block and study schedules for the upcoming exams, the next chapter is roughly halfway done. Nevertheless, I just want to say thank you to everyone who's been enjoying the story so far, those who left kudos and comments and encouraging me, you guys are amazing 🤣. Take care of yourselves and I'll see you soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, not my art!  
> Max Kay --> https://www.instagram.com/maxisdrawing/?hl=en


	6. Chapter Three: The Good Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A promise, an enemy, and a friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said that "hopefully", Peter's vigilante buddies will be in this chapter? Me too.
> 
> *spins wheel of excuses*  
> *wheel breaks and rolls off to the distance*  
> ...  
> I don't know why the chapter went this way as I wrote it but THEY WILL BE IN THE NEXT ONE I SWEAR

**Chapter Three:**

**The Good Son**

* * *

Harry Osborn has been Peter Parker’s inconsistent best friend for the past five-ish years. He had first met the younger boy sitting in what initially used to be Harry’s “hiding spot” in the school’s abandoned library one day on a rainy afternoon. He had been rather small for his age, the school uniform appeared like it was another size bigger on him with arms and legs looking like if you spun them too hard, they’d break. He wore thin-framed glasses, rarely looked anyone in the eye, and frequently had his head buried in books.

The second time he met him, he found Peter underneath the floorboard of a classroom.

Bullies, of course, had trapped him in what seemed to be a cruel prank.

Oddly enough, Peter wasn’t screaming for help or pounding at the floor planks. Although, Harry had heard them before they suddenly went quiet, and when he loosened the nails and pulled him up from the ground, he was unnaturally calm—disheveled, dust on his sleeves, tear tracks on his face, but calm.

He didn’t speak so much, merely said “thank you” and left, but as if Harry was going to let him out of his sight like this for the rest of the day, and thus the beginning of an unlikely friendship, the kind where one of the two would suddenly transfer to another school and disappear for months, years even, but then encounter each other one morning as if nothing happened.

They’ve never really revealed much about their personal lives anyway—well, Harry tried to when his curiosity would get the better of him, but Peter revealed very little aside from the fact that his parents died when he was young and that his favorite movie was Spaceballs, and surprisingly not the movie it was ripped out off though it did change from time to time he says.

And loathe he is to admit, they’ve nevertheless become each other’s sounding board over the years, well, the years where the other was present and not on another distant part of the planet.

Harry, on the other hand, with him being the son of one of the richest men in the country, anyone can just google his name and voila. But that was the thing about Peter, he didn’t, he didn’t even know who his family was back when they first met. He was one of the few people Harry knew who saw him for who he was and not what the articles or the others said.

It shouldn’t bother him, he knew, with how close he was getting to people like Peter. His father had always said to keep such things at arm’s length, from materialistic possessions to friends and all alike, more so ever since his mother died.

Of course, Harry could just point out his father’s own hypocrisy, but what good would that do?

The driver parked the Mercedes-Maybach right outside the Oscorp Industries’ building, the structure self-importantly sitting in what used to be the place of Stark and then the Avengers Tower as well as sticking out as the tallest skyscraper on the island.

Harry glanced at his phone, the message he sent to Peter half an hour ago that they should meet at Oscorp’s intern labs instead first to have the opportunity to consult with their projects—or at least that’s what a certain someone suggested

Harry slipped through the car door, the driver turned to him with a polite smile and asked, “Shall I bring the food to your office, sir?”

Harry frowned at the word “office” but answered nonetheless. “Sure.” He could bring the food by himself of course, but he wasn’t really fond of the media posting an article of the son of Norman Osborn delivering a pizza box to his father’s own company.

As he entered through the doors, people—employees, businessmen, visiting negotiators—greeted him with a smile stretching too widely. Harry either nodded back in acknowledgement or simply avoided eye contact, his pace going faster until he got into an elevator that was thankfully empty.

His office, however, was not so empty.

“This is not what it seems.” Peter said, a little wild-looking, his hair was more disheveled than ever before, a few scratches along his face here and there, his backpack hanging off one shoulder while his unkempt green hoodie had clumps of orange fur that probably belonged to the orange tabby and innocent-looking cat he was struggling to hold with both hands.

Harry paused, blinking a few times to make sure this was real, and then he casually asked with an uncertain smile, “Problems, Pete?”

Peter smiled back mirthlessly. “Not really, no.”

“You’re picking stray cats now or...?” Harry wasn’t as really as surprised as one would be, after all, Peter did once tell him that he spent five hours catching flies for an idea.

“No.” Peter scoffed at the idea. “I despise cats. But this cat is stuck with me for the time being. It’s already demolished my place and ate half of my food this morning—” He shot it a glare which the cat coolly ignored, “and when I tried to get rid of it, it kept. Coming. Back.”

“Calm down.” Harry placated. “How did you get here so early anyway? And what's that smell? It's like there's something burnt.”

Peter stiffened. After cleaning out the mess in his apartment, he swore he took three baths just to get rid of the smell _—_ the suit still stank but that was a problem for later _—_ but apparently, his efforts were albeit useless.

"I burned my apartment." He blurted.

Harry stared. "What?"

" _No—_ what I mean to say is— _quit it, you_ —” Peter drops the cat when it starts to play with his jacket, which then started to pick on his shoelaces. “I burned my breakfast while this piece of monstrosity was wrecking my place. I had to look for breakfast elsewhere.”

Peter internally grimaced at his excuse. For some reason, he almost always panicked when it came to lying and ended up saying the first thing that came to his mind. He was getting better at it nowadays but still.

Regarding breakfast though, there had been that cold toast that was still stuck on the Darth Vader toaster—for some reason, Goose didn’t touch that—but Peter thought he deserved a much "healthier" breakfast after nearly being blown to bits.

“Well, at least you’re not late this time.” Harry said, kneeling down on one knee to pet the cat—probably finding the thing cute. Peter would have to warn him of its cunningness and deception later. "Does your pet have a name?"

"He's not my _pet_." Peter scowled, crossing his arms. He paused. "Goose."

Harry looked at him, bemused. "Goose."

"It wasn't my idea."

"Sure."

Peter ran a hand over his hair, messing it even further. “Well, believe what you want to believe.” He said. “So, is it okay if he stays with us? Unless you have a trashbag and a river nearby, this thing’s probably not going anywhere.”

Harry raised an eyebrow at him. “We’re going to be in a lab with dangerous and/or fragile equipment and you want to bring the cat that wrecked your apartment?”

“Yes.” Peter answered without missing a beat. “And it only destroys stuff when I’m not around. Our ‘relationship’ is very complicated.”

Harry rolled his eyes in both exasperation and amusement. “Fine.” He relented. “But any damage to the lab—”

“I’ll pay for it, yeah yeah.”

“On a freelancer’s salary? I don’t think so, Pete.” Harry joked with a smirk, gesturing for his friend to walk with him to the lab.

“Fine. I’ll fix it then.” Peter huffed, Goose following beside him.

Harry’s personal lab was just a floor above R&D and right below the executive office—a.k.a. the company CEO’s office. It was mixture of both a laboratory and an industrial workshop—which probably sounds bad, but hey, it was Harry’s, and they only managed to nearly burn the building _four_ times this past few months which was a great improvement compared to last year.

Although, four was more than enough to get an ‘eviction warning notice’ from the big man, which then brought the idea for a research station sited in a specific location in the city. It had been Harry’s idea, one that he surprisingly fought hard for to convince his father.

Though he never actually met Mr. Osborn, he knew Harry rarely spoke against him—well, rarely in public that is—but it was more shocking when he successfully managed to convince his father. Peter supposed the man wasn’t CEO of Stark Industries’ main competitor for nothing after all.

Goose hopped onto Peter’s desk while the teen waited for his laptop to configure the files of his flash drive. “How’s college life treating you by the way?” He asked. Harry was two years and five months older than him, despite so, Peter used to be the one tutoring him back when Harry still went to Midtown Tech. In exchange, Harry would give him five dollars per lesson (because Peter’s allowance wasn’t enough—well, according to his eleven-year-old self that is) and let him play on his gaming console for two hours.

“Oh, the usual.” Harry said, albeit absentmindedly as he laid out the schematics of his project on his desk. “Deadlines piling up, professors conspiring behind our backs to stack one homework after another, and this day would have marked my second weeksary with my complicated relationship with ramen noodles.”

Peter raised an eyebrow at him. It was quite difficult to imagine Harry eating ramen noodles when his allowance was most likely a dozen times more than the one Fury gave him for the rest of the year.

“I’m telling you, man.” Harry grinned. “Those stuff are addictive. The university even set up three vending machines in the cafeteria.”

Peter perked up at the idea. “Ramen vending machines. We truly are living in the golden age of technology.”

A diagram appeared in Peter's laptop along with a notification telling him that his files have already finished uploading. Unlike Harry and most contestants in the NY Science Fair, it's only been a few weeks since he started planning out his project.

Obviously, he didn't have an average day-to-day life like most people and there were always one or three unexpected incidents turning up on seemingly "ordinary" days, whether it’s in Downtown Manhattan or the local convenience store. Who knows? Maybe giant killer bees would attack the city next month.

Oddly specific of him but once you saw aliens falling from the sky and fought a couple of lizard-men in the sewers, anything was a likely possibility.

“How about you, Pete? Picked a university yet?”

Peter tilted his head in thought. “No, not yet.” He admitted. Though he was eager to get out of high school, he wasn’t yet so certain on which direction to take afterwards. Most of the universities he was interested in was in another state, and apart from the issues of his “second” job, he didn’t like the idea of moving out of New York. Spider-Man or no.

The desire of even transferring to college stemmed from his utter boredom during classes. Don’t get him wrong, Midtown Tech was great and all but learning how to balance chemical equations? What were they, nine?

Harry must have noticed his disgruntled expression. “You know,” He began, “you could also enroll in enrichment programs that would modify the right educational curriculum for your standards.”

“Why does it sound like you googled that just now?”

“Yesterday, actually,” Harry admitted, “when you messaged me with that declaration of how boring and inefficient the American School System was like that girl who kept shouting about climate change.”

“That bad, huh?” Peter huffed out a sigh. “Well, I’ve already joined the school’s robotics club and decathlon, and my schedule’s already busy as it is.” 

"What about an internship?"

Peter thought of it. "Yeah, that'd be great, I suppose." He sighed, muttering as he added, "Maybe losing that Stark Internship program really was too rash of me."

"Yeah, that was— _you what?!_ " Harry dropped his pen and stared at him, aghast.

"I—uh, losing that Stark Internship?"

Harry sputtered. "You, the guy who won at every science fair, lost?"

"Well, there was this one time that I lost to a baking soda volcano—"

Harry had now grabbed him by the shoulders, a disapproving frown on his face. "You deliberately lost, didn't you?"

_Am I really that obvious?_ He thought at the back of his mind. The thoughts of his front, however, translated into, "Pfft, no."

"Oh for crying out loud, _Peter!_ " Harry sounded liked a disappointed parent. "Why on earth would you lose on purpose?!"

Peter crossed his arms, surely that choice wasn't that bad! "Hey, first of all, I wasn't going to get paid—" Harry rolled his eyes, "second of all, I'm... not much of a fan of Tony Stark."

Harry was looking at him as if he'd said that he was going to catch more flies in the public park even if it took him all night. "Right." He slowly said, raising a disbelieving eyebrow. "Like that would stop you from working in the company that made literal flying robot armors, changed the game for nanotechnology, created electric cars, solar computers, and other things I really don't have to mention."

_God, the nanotechnology part had been damn tempting_. 

Peter remained quiet anyway for a few moments, avoiding Harry's incredulous gaze. "I just thought it's not really what I wanted... for now." He began. "I know I'm capable of doing the job, but I got a lot on my plate right now, Harry. With moving to college and other stuff."

_Not the truth, not a lie._

Nevertheless, Harry didn't look like he completely believed him either. But his face slightly softened, he knew about Peter's dislike of being pressured to do things just because he was a "prodigy" or a "whiz kid", it was why he stopped going to the same school as Harry years ago—or so he believed.

Guilt pinpricked Peter all over. When it came to being asked for questions like this and terrible he may be at lying sometimes, he didn't really like to do so in front of the people he trusted who then trusted him in return.

Peter ran a hand over his hair, pushing the emotion away before it dwelled longer. "Sorry." He said anyway.

Harry looked at him for another moment or two, then sighed. "It's fine, I just overreacted that's all." He told him. "Well, it's your choice anyway. But please, next time if something like that happens again, think about it first and _try_ not to lose?"

Peter snorted. "Yeah, sure."

Harry huffed a breath. "You know, you're always saying you're busy." He returned to his seat. "Where are you always going by the way?”

He recalled the many times Peter got in trouble for being late or absent. His friend had always seemed to have terrible luck: tripping down the stairs, homework suddenly missing, being stuck in traffic, losing one of his shoes on his way to school—and it strangely happened _twice_.

Peter only shrugged. “Just around.” He nonchalantly said, ignoring another pinprick.

At this, Harry shook his head, turning back to his laptop. That’s probably the only answer he’ll get from that particular question. “Well, we better get started.” He said, checking his watch. “We can then go to the research station by three something o’clock once we’re done.”

For the next two hours, the two spent their time working on their projects—giving each other input and opinions when need to be, as well as Peter arguing with Goose to stop playing with his laptop’s mouse or suddenly splaying his fur-filled body across the keyboard from time to time.

While Harry was examining specimen slides under a microscope, writing and sketching what he observed, Peter was busy tackling the task he found most difficult with—designing his presentation.

Despite his genius and skills in mechanical or chemical alike, he sorely lacked at the charm and social department. Although, anyone could probably already guess the latter. When he wasn’t hiding in the corner of a room during parties or field trips, he had trouble keeping words escaping from his mouth—deliberately or otherwise.

Believe it or not, he was actually polite—well, he _can_ be polite—more so than most teens, the lessons drilled into him by his aunt and uncle when he was younger—Fury as well at times—but while in some cases, his politeness would appear in the form of seemingly innocuous questions or comments that can be easily dismissed from one’s mind, there were cases where he would start speaking so fast in a pace (or another language nerds could only understand) that most people wouldn’t bother to keep up.

That was where Harry helped him in. _No pointing at that man’s weird neck_ , _no talking about the movie 12 years of slave during parties_ , _No “borrowing” the fossils at the museum, No mentioning Hamilton every five minutes_ , _No dismantling Agent Coulson’s car_ , _No scaring the new agents back to the academy_ , _No catching random flies in the public park_ —

_Wait,_ Peter thought with a frown, _Fury told me the last three bits. Not Harry_.

Now that he was thinking of it, a lot of people told him _no_ about loads of things.

Suddenly, Goose had enough of being bored. He blearily glanced at Peter—who was still pausing to think—and then to his surroundings. The other boy in the room still had his head in a microscope, barely paying attention to anything else. Then a sudden gleam caught the cat's eye, something shiny.

 _There!_ It was shining through the window, flickering on and off like a bright star at night.

Flerken senses, especially their eyesight, were naturally several times sharper than a human's—or a terran cat for that matter. Goose didn't need to get up from his slumped position to get a better look, but even though the creature had his interests on whatever was shining through the glass window, he cared less for the reasons why.

Peter, however, did.

The hands on his keyboard stilled, managing to continue as normally as he could like before, but his senses were no longer focused. There was the unmistakable prickling at the back of his neck—faint, but there.

Curiously, Goose got up from his position all of a sudden, neck craning to see something past Peter. The teen slightly swiveled to wherever Goose was looking, his eyes flickering back and forth to the rest of the room until he found the same strange beam of light Goose noticed, and then disappearing again.

But before Peter could make an excuse to get closer to the window, his senses caught something else. _Footsteps_.

His head turned to the door before it even opened. A man with reddish brown hair, a pointed face and sharp hazel eyes entered the room, eyeing the laboratory albeit lazily with his brows creasing at the sight of Harry and Peter working on their desks. Goose had hopped off and crawled beside Peter’s legs, giving the man a suspicious sniff—probably not liking him so much—before strolling to another area of the lab.

The man raised an unamused eyebrow at them, pointing specifically at Harry. “Didn’t know you have friends coming over.”

At that second, Peter realized who this man was. He heard Harry let out a small sigh before standing up, Peter uncertainly following suit. “Peter,” He said with an unusual tone of formality, “may I introduce my father, Norman Osborn.”

Peter, out of the politeness that had been drilled into his head, unhesitatingly extended a hand and said, “Great honor to meet you, sir.”

“Peter, ey? One of Harry’s old schoolmates.” A smile twitched Mr. Osborn’s lips. “I’ve heard many things about you. A genius being among them.”

“I don’t really know about that, but thank you.” Peter uncertainly chuckled, ignoring Harry’s amused look as the younger teen tried to process the complement. He never did do well when told by such things, no matter who it came from.

“Told you he’d deny it, Dad. He’s also the guy who made the win for Midtown's Decathlon team.”

The tips of Peter’s ears turned lightly pink. He had the urge to elbow Harry on the ribs but instead shot him a quick glare.

Mr. Osborn seemed amused by their quiet banter. “Harry tells me you’re also quite the science whiz.” He said. “You know, I am something of a scientist myself.”

“Yes,” Peter jumped into the topic before Harry could say anything else, “I’ve read your paper on biotechnology. It was truly brilliant.”

“And you understood it?”

Peter nodded. “I submitted a paper about it a few years ago.” _And helped me better understand how my powers worked_ , he added in his thoughts, recalling how frantic he was for answers after the “incident”.

Mr. Osborn’s eyebrows raised. “I’m impressed.” He stated, looking actually quite so. “Your parents must be very proud.”

A small, somewhat pensive smile tugged the corners of Peter’s lips. He made no comment, however, that most of his family were already buried beneath the ground. “Thank you, sir.”

Harry must have noticed the change in his tone, his eyes looking at him in concern. “So Dad," Harry cleared his throat, "what brings you here?”

“Ah, yes.” Mr. Osborn glances at his watch. “Dr. Marcus has called, he’s available forthis afternoon after all.”

Harry frowned. “Can’t we just schedule another appointment tomorrow? I already have someplace else to be this afternoon.”

Mr. Osborn shot his son a quelling look. “So do I, Harry.” He said with a calm yet firm tone. “I’ve already arranged an appointment, and I would remind you that it is not prudent to behave like— _this_ —in front of others. I will meet you at the lobby in thirty minutes, get yourself ready.”

Without waiting for a reply, Mr. Osborn leaves without another word. From the corner of his eye, Peter saw Harry’s fists clenching as he muttered something under his breath. For a moment, he looked mutinous, but then he turned back to his desk and started packing his things.

Peter unwittingly tried to lighten the mood. “Your dad doesn’t seem so… bad?”

Harry shot him a glare, looking briefly just like his father seconds ago, before his expression morphed into something gloomy. “He’s just stressed.” He said, running a hand over hid head. “Something to do with work if I had to guess.”

Peter carefully sat down on top of his desk. He knew Harry’s father had suffered some sort of nervous breakdown roughly two years ago—likely caused by his grief during the death anniversary of his wife.

Oscorp has kept the full details under wraps of course, maybe even Harry didn’t know what really happened, let alone Peter. But he had put two and two together when he noticed Harry’s sudden change of mood during that period of time, as well as his excuses as to why his father couldn’t attend his birthday or awarding ceremony or his visits to a rehabilitation facility that _definitely_ wasn’t for him.

He didn’t stalk his friend, of course, just… hacked into one or two highly-secured files.

It wasn’t even a short period of time now that he thought of it. If he remembered correctly, it had been five months before Mr. Osborn made a public appearance with his son during the World Unity Fair.

“Sorry, Pete.” Harry turned to him. “Guess I’m going to have to cancel _again_. Let’s just hope the smog levels have gone down.”

Peter grabbed his bag. Goose had made himself comfortable inside it, leaving little space for his laptop which he had to carry instead. “You know, if it’s okay with you, _I_ can go to the station.” He said.

This project was clearly important to Harry. It was more or less similar to charity work but it was something he’d been working for a long time, even going against his father’s back a couple of times just so the stations could be properly established.

“You’re sure it’s okay?”

“Yeah, I don’t really have anything to do for the rest of the day anyway.”

Well, there was his suit that still reeked of burnt wood and ashes but that was a problem for later…along with a few new items he had to buy for his demolished living room. And homework.

Oh well, it was still Saturday. He could just do them on Sunday evening like a good and responsible student would.

Harry sighed. “Well, it’d be more practical.” He reached into his bag, retrieving something that looked like a white metallic card with several thick, black lines streaked horizontally. “Here’s the keycard for the research station. You remember where it’s located right?”

“234 W 48th Street, around the financial district, West of Midtown Manhattan. Got it.” Peter recited, accepting the card. It was lighter than it looked, the sharp logo of Oscorp Industries etched into the right corner. “I’ll be on my way as soon as possible.”

"You know you could just say it's in Hell's Kitchen instead of _West of Midtown Manhattan_." Harry added, shaking his head with a smile. “Thanks for doing this, Pete. This project means a lot to me.”

Peter recalled the times he consulted on the project, mainly on the station’s structure and functionality. For once, Peter had been the one getting exasperated with Harry asking and repeating questions of “are you sure”, “is there any better way to”, “can we add more”, etc.

He smiled dryly. “Really? I never noticed.”

The other teen rolled his eyes, slinging his bag over his shoulder as they headed back to Harry’s office. Out through the glass walls as they rode the elevator, scientists in lab coats were occupied with their own undertaking in the R&D Department.

Incomplete schematics of Oscorp’s latest creations was displayed on one of their larger screens, something to do with an exoskeleton suit—probably a project for the military if the design and defense system codes on the monitor had anything to say.

“It used to be my mom’s pet project.” Harry suddenly said as soon as the elevator halted to a stop. They started walking towards the office. “She’s always wanted to help people, you know?”

Peter turned to him curiously, but remained quiet as he waited for Harry to continue.

He had met Harry’s mother a few years ago, the first and last time he saw her. She was a kind and gentle woman, her hair was a pale, faded gold, identical gray eyes as her son’s, and she had been rather frail and thin.

Despite so, that didn’t stop her from fussing over them when they both arrived soaked by the rain, and for a brief moment, Peter had been filled with envy as he saw Harry with his family. He had left without another word, refusing to speak to his friend for the next few weeks, until…

Harry’s face was facing the other side as he spoke. “I’ve continued the project, and I finally convinced Oscorp to launch them—thank goodness for that—but they’re going to shut them down too unless they prove their value. And since now I’m going to _busy_ for who knows how long…” He trailed off, rubbing his temples again.

Peter’s eyebrows furrowed in concern, he gingerly placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “They won’t be shut down.” He said. “Not after everything you did to make them possible or the times you got sick because you wouldn’t listen to your wisest friend who kept saying you need rest—” Harry stared at him apathetically, “—and certainly not after growing eyebags that would possibly reach the floor if you keep them up.”

That earned him an exasperated glare and a tiny smile, which Peter considered a win nonetheless. He smiled confidently. “Look, we’re research pals.” He wrapped an arm around Harry’s shoulder. “I can’t stop you from doing stupid things but I’m not letting you go through it alone. That's a promise.”

“ _I’m_ doing the stupid things?” Harry snorted but his smile grew as he raised an eyebrow at Peter.

Peter pretended to be in thought. He shrugged. “All the time, yeah.” 

* * *

After a somewhat cold late lunch of pizza slices and large sodas, Peter and Harry separated ways. Harry waited for his father at the lobby while Peter waved goodbye and headed his way out of Oscorp Industries, but not without pausing once he passed through the exit.

He glanced up to where the beam of light must have been flashing through the window. Either he was being paranoid or his precognitive senses were going haywire. He wasn’t entirely sure which was worse. However, his senses wouldn’t have been humming if they didn’t sense some sort of danger, or at least something that Peter needed to be aware of.

On the other hand, he didn’t feel any sort of buzz at the moment. Peter’s brows creased in thought. Well, that generally meant there was no trouble nearby, furthermore, his precognitive senses weren’t yet so good at recognizing what was a real danger or just a table leg he would stub his toe on.

No longer dwelling on the strange beam of light, Peter headed off to his apartment first to change and bring a few certain items. After that, he would then take a cab to the west of Midtown Manhattan.

Or _Hell's Kitchen,_ for that matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well at least I included the meme
> 
> So, remind me to not make any promises ever again XD  
> and I decided to cut the chapter there because the pacing wouldn't fit in, the next one will be ALL about DP and DD
> 
> A few notes:  
> -Peter's already fought the Green Goblin as mentioned in the "A Redacted Assessment" chapter but he doesn't know about the Goblin's real identity.  
> -The science-y talk in this story is more or less just google research, so, yeah, don't take them as completely accurate heh.  
> -As I've mentioned in the tags, the timeline doesn't completely follow MCU canon. I may or may not create one in the future to make the events of the story (whether referred to as the past or the present) understandable. Or a prequel. (Wait, does that count as a promise?)
> 
> Leave kudos, thoughts, comments (I'm disappointed in me too for not including DP and DD) and I'll see you guys next time XD


	7. Chapter Four: The Mostly-Good, The Not-so-Bad, and the Ugly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pollution, a decapitated head, and the mystery of the chimichanga incident
> 
> WARNING:  
> there's a little bit of gore, I'm pretty sure you can guess regarding the "summary" I put above hehe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM STILL ALIVE
> 
> also,
> 
> holy schnitzel, 500+ KUDOS?! Random ideas at 2 am and the sudden urge to write them truly are blessings! THANK YOU! Have this chapter as my Christmas present to all you beautiful people!
> 
> Now, just as I promised...

**Chapter Four:**

**The Mostly-Good, The Not-so-Bad, and the Ugly**   
**(No Wade, I'm not changing the title)**

* * *

Hell’s Kitchen during the afternoon wasn’t like most neighborhoods in the island of Manhattan. Other streets were almost always gridlocked with vehicles and their drivers and pedestrians screaming at each other, but surprisingly, Hell’s Kitchen was quite—he would dare say it—peaceful.

Well, during the day that is anyway.

Peter had no other choice but to drop Goose off at his apartment building. He was about to start his patrol later evening and Spider-Man couldn’t be seen carrying a cat for obvious reasons. Plus, even if he did, he wouldn’t know how to stop Goose from devouring lowly criminals.

His living room at the moment was just a scratched up couch and a television with a shattered screen. Maybe it was the fact that there wasn’t anything left to demolish but Goose had been strangely okay with staying at his apartment, or maybe it was because the two of them found out that the gruff old man next door liked cats and was willing to look after Peter’s pet.

Despite his demeanor, he seemed like a pretty good guy and Goose wasn’t meowing in complaint so he took the opportunity and left. He left food and water for good measure of course, and his number to the old man in case someone gets… swallowed.

After dealing with that, it still took him almost an hour to get through the congested neighborhood to arrive at the research station. He and Harry actually planned to launch multiple facilities across Manhattan, each one monitoring different issues or complications. The one in Hell’s Kitchen focused on air quality, monitoring contaminants and toxins in the atmosphere which had unfortunately increased over the past few months.

The moment he stepped into the rooftop to where the station was sited, Peter scrunched up his nose as he was hit with the distinct sulfurous smell of smoke and bleach. The district was filled with clouds of smog, almost like a dust storm was passing through, the scent somewhat reminding him of the smoke in the fire earlier morning.

Harry’s recent voice message replayed in his head. _The one at Hell's Kitchen is measuring air pollution The idea’s to catch "contaminants" before they reach toxic levels. Between you and me, I think I figured the reason why Oscorp wants this to fail ‘cause it might show they’re polluting… along with certain corporate overlords who don’t want their dirt being publicly reported._

_Michelle’s been telling the same thing about it_ _too_ , he thought, then he stilled. The thought of Michelle surprised him, his thoughts normally didn’t wander off to other people except for a certain few. Now that, again, he was thinking of it, she has been slipping into his mind a lot lately.

Or maybe he was dwelling on it too much. Shaking his head, Peter focused back on his task. He pulled out the key card from his pocket and swiped it across the system reader, the entrance opening with a quiet hiss as the computers within the station were activated. Peter wasted no time initiating the photochemical and optical sensor systems.

The designated hotspots—or “trouble spots”—within Hell’s kitchen immediately lighted up in the screen as the monitors measured their levels of air quality, each one suddenly changing to a warning red. “The amount of polycyclic hydrocarbons in the air is way too high… and they’re still rising.” Peter thought aloud, eyebrows furrowing at the results. A shudder ran through him. _If this gets worse than it already is, people could actually die._

 _And to think Oscorp seemed so eager to shut this down,_ he added quietly, _they should be lucky that Harry wasn't willing to back down so easily._ At the back of his mind, his aunt's words whispered, "No one can help everyone but everyone can help someone." He murmured, remembering them as clearly as the first time she told him.

He had to get samples in order to locate the sources—and fast, but the particles in the trouble spots were concentrated like mini-clouds of smog. The teen propped a hand on his chin, thinking what to do, he couldn’t just dangle from a ledge and wait for the smog to be pumped through the sampling canister.

A flash of red peeked from his bag. Generally, there was an unspoken rule that one shouldn’t cross another vigilante’s territory unless absolutely necessary, but it’s been four weeks since the last time he visited an old friend, perhaps he wouldn't mind.

Besides, a familiar electric thrill had begun to crackle over his skin. A thrill he always felt that he could never ignore. Peter’s lips twitched into a smile.

* * *

The rush of wind whipped past the young vigilante as his webs zoomed his body into the open air—the fixed Spider-Man suit appeared as if it was merging with the sky’s glorious conflagration of red and orange. The sunset’s rays warmed him, the air was cool, tranquil, calm—

It stank horribly.

Peter pushed his mask up to cough into his sleeve, the smoke had become so thick that it engulfed through his mask. "Nasty as they are," He rasped, "I gotta swing right through 'em."

More coughs tickled at the back of his throat as he swung through the air, holding the canister on one hand as it took samples from the mini clouds. The smog had turned the air looking vaguely like a dust storm in the Sahara Desert—one that was apparently abundant in sulfur dioxide if the readings in Harry's data were completely accurate.

“This can’t possibly be good for me.” Peter hacked sharply as the coughs forced their way out of his throat. He ignored the bitter taste in his tongue after swinging through more than a dozen clouds of disgusting smog. _It’s like breathing from a tailpipe_.

He had a hunch that it was mainly caused by inefficient engine exhaust—thermal engines, to be more precise—and was proved correct later on. With the available data, he was able to identify the source of the smog, tracing it back to two types of cars along with a faulty smokestack in the district.

Peter dropped onto a ledge, gasping for even the tiniest bit of good air. “Thank God, that’s done.” He panted. All left to do now was make a report—pictures of the guilty parties and then send it to the Department of Environmental Protection. Let Oscorp try arguing the research station’s usefulness now when it just stopped a public health crisis.

“Courtesy of your Earth-Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.” Peter laughed at himself which ended in a coughing fit, he removed his mask and hood once he found the empty alleyway where he changed into his suit a while ago. “Sweet, sweet, slightly less polluted oxygen...”

His lungs still burned even after he heaved in a couple more breaths. His hair more than just vaguely smelled of smoke and bleach, and no doubt the insides of his backpack was going to stink later—the suit still reeked from the fire and now it had the added bonus of dust, soot, and sulfur dioxide. _Pleasant._

Wiping the dirt from his face only resulted in the smudge spreading along his neck but at least the mask wasn’t smelling so terrible as earlier. Peter felt another tickle at the back of his throat and coughed into his arm. _Well, at least that’s done_. He thought, pulling the mask down. _Now, what time is it?_

Peter reached into his utility belt, unclasping one of its compartments and pulled out his phone—the one he used for “Spider-manning” and all things related to. He placed his thumb on the circular bump below its cracked screen, the surface lighting up almost instantly. _17:24._ It wasn’t typically his patrol time, but it was a Saturday and he was already in his suit—though not exactly in the right neighborhood.

And despite that this was a _familiar_ neighborhood, he wasn’t so sure if its certain guardian devil was going to be delighted once he realized he was in his territory.

_Oh he won’t mind_ , Peter thought. _Probably_. _Maybe_.

Before Peter could return his phone back on his belt, it suddenly vibrated which made him pause in curiosity. Raising an eyebrow, he looked back at the screen.

Among the things that made this device different from the other phone he owned—or most phones for that matter—was that it was on a coded secure line. There weren’t that many who had his number, let alone anyone he allowed to get through the line almost immediately without a full analysis of where it had transmitted.

Although, there was one.

The young vigilante opened the message, placing a finger long enough on the screen for the scanner to read his fingerprint. As Peter’s eyes flew over the words, his brows began to furrow further in confusion.

The message was a series of random numbers and a line of text beside it that read: _Come alone. 23:45._

_Well, that’s not foreboding at all._ Peter’s first thought was. The second that came to his mind was a realization. The numbers weren’t a cryptic message at all, but a set of coordinates and a date. He’d check the coordinates later, but for now, he knew at least two things… well, one thing and a question.

One, the numbers turned out to be the date for Friday. Second, why had Fury suddenly decided to meet up?

His mind started to think of a plausible reason behind the strange message. Perhaps Fury had forgotten something to tell him? No, the man was many things, but forgetful was certainly not one of them. He was one of the most meticulous people on the planet.

Something must have happened then, something that made him want to meet up in person since he apparently couldn't call instead.

Or he could call him now.

Peter stood stock still as he thought over it for a moment, weighing the pros and cons.

“Nah.” He dismissed, putting his phone away instead. He figured the most likely purpose of Fury’s “mysterious” meeting would be that he was going to assign Peter on another SHIELD mission, or something SHIELD-related anyway, since his very existence and connection to the former director was _supposed_ to be kept in the dark—ironically with all these mundane tasks the man had been assigning him lately.

Peter breathed out a huff, giving the empty alleyway another look before putting his hood on and shot a web close to the rooftop’s edge—and then leaped up to a light pole posted above.

He scanned the area with a practiced eye, letting his senses expand towards his surroundings. It was quiet now that the evening was close. From his position, there were small sounds of chatter coming from a nearby apartment building, streets roaming with cars on his other side and lights within tall buildings illuminating the city.

The young vigilante had been monitoring the criminal activity in Hell’s Kitchen for a couple of months—which had significantly lowered since Wilson Fisk’s arrest. And yet at the same time, _concerning_ issues rose to the surface soon afterwards. Some time ago, criminal syndicates and crime families used to work harmoniously—well, as harmoniously as they could possibly be anyway—until the fateful day of Fisk's arrest and him spending the rest of his miserable life away in the Raft.

The arrest had them scattered panic like leaves blown into the wind. Even so, the disorder within their chain of command didn’t stop them from trying to fill in the void left by their former boss roughly three years ago.

So far, the police had been able to handle it well—with the seemingly occasional help of their unwelcomed vigilante.

_Speaking of which…_

The back of his neck prickled. Peter’s ears detected the hint of a heartbeat and nearly inaudible footsteps walking towards his direction. He wasn’t yet so adept that he could identify _anyone_ just by their heartbeat, but it was pretty obvious for the youth to discern who it belonged.

“Red.”

“Red.”

Peter turned to Daredevil with a smile beneath his mask, meeting the man's blood-red lenses. “What brings you here?”

Stoic as ever when wearing the mask, Daredevil calmly said, “What brings _you_ here?”

"Don't worry. I won't be spending the entire night in this place." Peter swung from his seat and gracefully landed on his feet. “I got an errand to run in this side of town, and since what’s east of this side of town is the home of some of the best burgers in the country—”

“From a knockoff restaurant of Burger King.”

“I know you liked those cream cheese bagels from Donkey Donuts so don’t even pretend. Also, I wanted to check in one of my best partners-in-crime. Well, you know, not literally in-crime.”

“Is that so?”

“Come on, don’t tell me you’re still mad that I skipped training a few weeks ago.”

“No,” Daredevil said, “I am not.”

Training was one of their agreements a couple of months after their first encounter. A few heated arguments, debates, and one or three physical fights during those months—as well as a bloodied nose and two cuts on the older vigilante’s face—Peter and Matt finally came to a compromise.

Peter would continue as Spider-Man but the older, much more experienced vigilante would take him under his wing and train the young teen—as well as teach him other things such as how not to get yourself killed 101, basic strategic positions when you find yourself in a crossfire 101, how to not get caught by the police because good reasons or no, vigilantism is still illegal 101.

And Spanish 101 when there was time to spare.

Because Peter, oddly enough, found the task of learning the language too tedious even for his gigantic mind.

“Besides,” Daredevil continued, “I’ve already taught you most of everything I know.”

“Yeah,” Peter muttered, “ _most_.”

Daredevil simply lifted a shoulder in what must be a half-shrug. Then, as if he had noticed something unpleasant, his lips slightly tugged downwards.

“It’s the smell, isn’t it?” Peter said. “No offense, Double D, but the air pollution in this town is worse than New Jersey’s, and they say everything is much worse in New Jersey.”

Daredevil paused for another second before turning to the teen. “You’re right, you smell terrible.”

Indignant, Peter crossed his arms. “Hey.”

A smile briefly replaced the frown on Daredevil’s face. “Well, since you’ve made yourself comfortable,” He continued, “you might as well make yourself useful.”

Before Peter could retort with something, the older vigilante suddenly turned and leaped over the edge almost automatically, landing on the other side of the alleyway with the grace of a cat.

There was a silent gesture for Peter to follow to which he, with a last glance at Harry's research station, did. The younger of the two assumed that this, too, was part of training.

Along the path of pouncing and diving from one edge to another, Peter glanced at his quiet companion. There was something hasty in his tone earlier and he certainly noticed something before they started patrolling. Naturally, Peter was curious as to what placed the man in a sour mood but figured that mentioning it now again would be fruitless. He filed his curiosity for later.

They were heading their way west. Nightfall had approached, the streets were dimly lit by lamp posts on the sidewalks and the wind had slowed down to a steady whistle. It was like any other night, whether he was with a companion or otherwise, his unique of a part-time job of roaming the streets and stopping crime for nearly three years.

New York in general always had varying degrees of crime severity—from stealing to full blow heists like yesterday—and despite the data Peter had gathered for each city with vigilante activity, there was always that factor of unpredictability in each one.

Like now.

There was a strange tingle in the air, humming at the back of his neck. Not like earlier however, this one was… different and yet, familiar.

His forehead creased. He was getting more and more of these weird “senses” lately.

 _I should focus_ , Peter thought, minutely shaking his head. He glanced at his side and saw that Daredevil seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts as well.

Along their patrol, the duo stopped a break-in, a stolen vehicle which Peter easily stopped with a short burst of electromagnetic pulse from one of his gadgets, and three petty burglars who were about to rob a church for its silver candlesticks and plates. That had been a quick job to finish. Peter barely even laid a hand or said a word to stop them, but he supposed the sight of Hell Kitchen’s Devil was enough to make them cower and surrender immediately.

The next few crimes were fairly easy to deal with such as a thief stupidly attempting to open up an ATM and at the present moment—  
  
A group of international terrorists.

_Well_ , Peter thought wryly as he avoided a bullet to the face, _the night had certainly escalated quick._

Roughly half an hour ago, Daredevil and Spider-Man were in the middle of stopping two robbers from escaping the Ardem Jewelry building. The two large men hoisted their bags full of brooches, pendants, cufflinks, and a whole lot more that probably costs more than just a couple of hundred thousand dollars.

The men were Hammerhead’s thugs and were probably used to spending most of their days guarding the Bar with No Name. Large, bulky, and despite their dark clothes and balaclavas, they seem to stuck out above the rooftop of the jewelry center. Apparently, they've been promoted—or demoted—to doing some of their boss’ dirty work.

Peter recognized these two. He had encountered them a few times before back when he was still a few months on being Spider-Man.

One of the two, Flint Marko, grabbed his bag and grinned at his companion. “Didn’t I tell ‘ya?” He said. “One getaway jump and we’d be a million bucks richer.”

“This is not worth a million bucks.” The bear-like man, Aleksei, said in a thick Russian accent. “Not if the boss takes his cut. A lot of these are not even—”

"Oh shut up." Marko cut off, having none of the man's pessimism. "Let's just get this over with before that red guy appears again."

Aleksei shrugged before approaching the edge. He bent his knees to jump, the distance between this and the other building wasn’t terribly far. The getaway car had been parked below and once they jam the keys into ignition, the streets offered a clear path for them to escape and easily lose the cops if the situation comes to that.

They didn’t think of this plan, of course, but they like to pretend that they did.

He was abruptly pulled back in the middle of his jumping, something tacky shot to his back and hauled him all the way back towards the edge.

"Ta-dah!” Peter extended his arms as he landed behind them, seemingly coming out of nowhere. “Say the name and the red guy magically appears!”

“Gah!” Aleksei scrambled off his feet while Marko started to frantically rummage through his pouch.

“Okay, maybe I’m not the red guy you expected—”

“Spider-Man!” Daredevil yelled at the same moment his senses rang like warning sirens. In front of the two large gang members, Peter looked like a doll about to be squashed but his prowess was more than enough to stop them in the blink of an eye—that is, if he didn’t consider the two robbers bringing highly-advanced weapons.

Marko whirled to him with a large grin in his face. In his hands was something that vaguely resembled an ordinary firearm with a carbon fiber barrel and dark platinum coating. An eerie and dangerous-looking yellow line glowed across the slide, the muzzle steadily burning bright as Marko pointed the pistol at the younger vigilante. “Lights out, bug!”

 _How unoriginal_. Peter’s first thought was, which was immediately shoved over by his screaming instincts to jump out of the way. Mid-air, he caught a quick yet clearer glimpse of the weapon—highly advanced, clearly not standard-issue firearm for gang members, and judging by the fist-sized hole in the bulletin board fifteen away from where he was nearly blown off, it wasn’t firing bullets but probably a high-energy particle beam.

Despite nearly having a laser blasted through his chest, Peter couldn’t help but geek out. “Holy cow, that’s like something straight out of a Star Wars movie!”

“Hold still, you worthless insect!”

“ _Bug_ , _insect_ , _bug_ ,” Peter repeated over and over as he continuously dodged more energy beams at his direction, deliberately hiding and using his surroundings as a shield to avoid getting shot—wouldn’t want any _stray beams_ to hit on unlucky civilians. “Technically, spiders are arachnids. They’re as different as birds are to fish so when you think about it, it’s not really a small distinction as most people would think—”

A vein bobbed in Marko’s forehead as he started to bark orders at the young vigilante to shut up and cooking him like roasted duck if he wasn’t going to. Peter, naturally, ignored the man and continued to play with him like a cat with its mouse.

Aleksei on the other hand had brought out his own weapon—something similar to Marko’s—but his hands flicked through the small settings hidden in its grip panel, turning a slide to its highest level. It glowed brighter than his companion’s—and a lot more dangerous—something that he probably already knew as he prepared to fire at Daredevil.

Yet the advanced weaponry at his disposal was useless due to his overall lack of speed—and wits.

Before Aleksei could pull the trigger, Daredevil emerged underneath his line of sight and swiftly hoisted him by the throat and belt, and lobbed him bodily onto the ground. The breath was knocked out of his lungs as the bigger man’s large figure crashed onto the cement with an audible whack—nothing broken…probably.

The glow of the weapon died out as soon as it fell from his fingers, Daredevil slid it far from the unconscious man’s reach before turning to Peter’s situation.

He was just in time to see the teenager deliver an uppercut into his opponent’s jaw, sending Marko mid-air before firing a strand to his arm and weapon—disarming him immediately—and pulled himself towards the man to launch a powerful drop kick.

Peter jumped off the body before it collided with the ground, the weapon now in his grasp.

A memory briefly flashed in Daredevil's mind of a younger Peter who, despite already knowing how to fight, had been more reliant on his instincts and just plain throwing a punch whenever he could. Nonetheless, he could still feel the old cut on his cheek from that one particular _argument_ however.

Marko glared from the ground, his legs wrapped up in a cocoon of strands and hands webbed to the cement.

“I got it! What do I win?” Spider-Man happily exclaimed, waving the weapon in front of his face. “Where can I get one of this?”

Marko gritted his teeth. “You…”

“I can get it from me? That makes no sense.”

The never-ending blabbering of these damn, self-proclaimed “heroes” was giving him a massive migraine—and that was even before these two came along.

"Hey," Peter said to Daredevil, "can you teach me about that move that put you in a coma?”

He saw how the man easily hurled Aleksei onto the ground which had oddly brought up that particular memory. It wasn't exactly the time and place to ask but he was curious. Besides, they've already stopped the bad guys.

Daredevil, accustomed to Peter's quirks, merely said, “No.”

“What about using a sword?”

“No.”

“Come on!” Peter pushed. “Imagine it: I can be called Ninja-Spider-Man with three hyphens!”

He would have usually scolded the teenager to focus on the situation, but multiple examples from the past reminded him that it wasn't going to stop the youth from pestering him more with questions. “How about this.” He began. “You teach me how to climb walls and I’ll teach you how to use a sword.”

Peter blankly stared. “Touché.”

Marko groaned loudly, hating that they've started to converse casually like they had gone on a stroll around the block. “Of all nights, why there’s gotta be _three_ of you costumed clowns at the same time?!”

The two vigilantes shared a confused look—well, Peter did. Matt simply furrowed his eyebrows. “Uh," Peter turned to him, "did he say three?”

A quiet huff blew out of his friend’s mouth, there was that frown again in his face. Peter waited, expecting for him to give an explanation when his ears rang with warning bells. Aleksei, no longer unconscious, had crawled over to his weapon and pointed the alarmingly glowing blaster onto their position—Daredevil, a perfect target. Matt had sensed it too but the trigger had already been pulled before he could move.

Peter’s mind and instincts took control and bodily shoved the older vigilante to the side, narrowly avoiding the burning energy beam that would have incinerated through his body.

"Not cool, man! Literally!"

" _Enough!_ " Aleksei aimed and fired the weapon multiple times, each one more powerful than the last and ignoring Marko's yelling for him to stop or he was going to kill them all.

The blaster glowed—though not from its muzzle. Heat burned bright from its handle to the barrel but that didn't deter Aleksei from continuing to fire.

He only stopped when one of the beams shot through the electricity panel beside Peter, massive sparks erupted from within, and the tang of vaporized metal was sharp in the air.

The panel crackled and burned, an explosion was inevitable. "Go!" Peter yelled over to Daredevil who was closest to Aleksei and Marko. The man briefly showed a flicker of hesitation before realizing that they only had seconds left to act.

Daredevil grabbed the chance to incapacitate Aleksei with a strike to his head and hoisted him and the bound Marko over the other side of the building.

Matt whipped his head towards Peter's direction. With nowhere else to run, the teenage vigilante jumped off to the opposite side of the building. He was about to shoot a web to swing but a string of electrical sparks travelled its way to his webshooters—disabling it before he could even fire.

_Oh crap—_

A surge of electricity and embers burst from the panel, sending a thousand sparks into the air and illuminating the sky for a brief moment. In the splinter of those seconds, colors swirled in Peter’s vision and his head tilted towards the inevitable fall. His arms automatically protected his head as gravity dragged him three stories down, trying not to think too much as he turned his body sideways to lessen the blow of the impact.

The expected thump of the ground or crunch of his bones didn’t necessarily come, and instead he felt himself slam _hard_ into the somewhat cushioned surface of piles of garbage bags, carton boxes, a broken microwave, some stoves, and wooden furniture that’s sharp broken edges threatened to pierce the skin of his back and sides.

The dumpster seemed to explode from his sudden impact and Peter’s bones tensed and yet at the same time felt like liquid—he was mainly unhurt, the wind had knocked off the breath from his lungs and stars vaguely danced and twirled in his line of sight, but he knew he’d be okay. He had been through worse before.

It didn’t stop him from breathing in and out like it was his first time inhaling oxygen, however. Even though the incident with the Vulture had been roughly a year ago, he still cannot handle _every_ shenanigan that either involved falling with broken webshooters or just generally a deep, dark some sort of abyss that would pull him down and down and debris wrapping around the rest of his—

_Stop._

Peter closed his eyes and took another large gasp of breath, the strength flowing back into his limbs like mercury.

A fire was brewing on the rooftop from where the electricity panel once was, it wasn’t a large one but someone still needed to put it out before it could reach or spread to other parts of the building. Distantly, he heard wailing sirens across the other streets. Matt must have already notified them.

Mindful of his healing limbs, Peter gingerly pushed himself up from the garbage dump—which, apart from cushioning his fall to some extent, only added to his already bitter-smelling suit. What a trip to the dry-cleaning this was going to be. “Gross,” He muttered, momentarily pausing at the pile of circuit boards and broken appliance, “though some of these can be handy.”

“Oh, hello there, dumpster diver who just fell from the sky.”

Peter froze. _Who said that?_ There was no one else in his surroundings, just the dumpster and some garbage cans, and maybe that rat on the corner but no one that could talk—

“Yeah, I know. This is awkward but I do agree that some of these things are _handy_." The voice chuckled. "You'll get that in a minute. Hold on a sec'."

The voice sounded like it was speaking close to him, and there was something twitching between two of the garbage bags. Peter’s senses weren’t exactly warning him of immediate danger but he could almost hear his heart pounding in his chest.

Was he just imagining this? He just now noticed the streaks of blood scattered on some parts of the dumpster and that odd-looking form of one of the garbage bags couldn’t possibly be… and the thing that was talking couldn’t possibly be…

The severed head heaved itself to his direction, an all too familiar red leather mask with black circles surrounding the white eye lenses widened in delight when it got a good look at him.

“Webs! So glad to meet you at this most convenient time and place!” Deadpool happily greeted. “Hey, can you give me a hand here? I’d give me a hand but as you can see, I don’t really have any at the moment.” He laughed and chuckled like he had made a hearty joke and not a morbid one that referred to his decapitated body.

Peter stared in horror.

And then he screamed.

Deadpool screamed in return.

* * *

"Why are _you_ here?! _W_ _hy is he here?!_ "

Daredevil looked like he was having a full-blown headache as he rubbed his temples in irritation and just pure resignation. "Believe me, I have no idea." He said, blocking out the horrid sounds of of Deadpool reattaching his head to his body with a staple gun. "But I did suspect that someone _had_ been following us back at the rooftop."

Peter recalled the slight haste in his tone earlier and the way the man seemed preoccupied during their patrol. Despite so, he couldn't help but ask out loud in near hysterics, "Why didn't you say so?"

Daredevil let out a sigh. "He stopped following roughly an hour ago," He said, "and because you would have precisely reacted the same as you are now."

Although, no one could blame him for his reaction. Besides, everyone would have reacted the same way if they realized that the talking decapitated head in the dumpster was the mercenary who tried to kill them two years ago who only stopped when they found out that their target's not even allowed to vote yet, and then proceeds to claim that once targeted person as his best frenemy. 

Peter huffed out a breath and crossed his arms, and no, he wasn't pouting like a child. "I thought that was part of your training or whatever."

"Well, I'm hurt." Deadpool suddenly said, throwing the staple gun to God knows where. It was getting windy again on top of the rooftop, not their most discreet meeting place but one that sufficed for their current predicament. "We haven't seen each other since the chimichanga incident. I let you copy my suit and you can't even say a 'welcome home'?" He fake sobbed.

"What happened in the chi—" Daredevil wondered aloud at the same Peter exasperatedly said—

"No!" He pointed at his face, ignoring the bloody staples decorating the man's neck—well, trying to anyway. "And you're the one who stole my design!"

"Uh, who's older again?"

Don't tell anyone this but Spider-Man _is_ the first with the design. While trying to figure out a new and modified costume that wasn't white, 24/7 easily stained with blood, and had to be stitched due to the numerous bullet holes, Wade found a Spider-Man cowl lying around in an alleyway and simply turned it inside out. Add that with some new details and voila.

"Wait a minute," Peter narrowed his eyes, his mind piecing a vague puzzle together. Again, he doesn't know yet the full extent or how his precognitive senses truly worked. Every once in a while, it had a problem identifying actual dangers—but he learned not too always rely on them and listened to his normal instincts.

His senses have been humming on and off ever since he left Oscorp Tower and it didn't take anyone with enhanced abilities to notice that someone was staring at their direction, let alone at least get a hint that they were being followed.

And that gleam of light earlier from the Oscorp Tower.

"You've been stalking me since afternoon!" Peter whispered furiously.

"Yeah, right. " Deadpool leaned his elbow on the Daredevil's shoulder, dismissing the idea with unconvincing nonchalance. "Not everything's about you, Spidey. Can you believe this guy, DD?" 

Matt pushed his arm off. "You're lying." He flatly stated. Despite his calm tone, his patience was wearing thin and it bled to his expression. "Why are you really here?"

"— _and_ why were you stalking me?!"

More often than not, when there was Daredevil, there was gun and/or stab-y trouble. When there was Spider-Man, there was the bizarre kind of trouble. And when there was Deadpool, there's just pure, chaotic, almost always life-threatening trouble.

Now imagine the three of them in the same time and place.

Deadpool huffed and placed his hands on his hips. "Fine," He sounded more serious now at the very least, "yes, I was _following_ you—"

"Stalking."

"—because I need your help."

"Oh, great." Peter muttered with a roll of his eyes.

"Don't roll your eyes at my help, young man." Deadpool sternly told him which did nothing to change the teenager's expression in the slightest. "Look, I'm tracking this group that's been selling illegal weapons for quite a while now, and this time, they're having weapons that are not like your ordinary guns or even plasma beams like Dumb and Dumber had earlier."

Deadpool proceeded to explain that a shot to the neck was all it took for his head and body to take a short vacation from each other. Marko and Aleksei's weapons were indeed from Hammerhead, but apparently, he didn't acquire these weapons alone. The blueprints and schematics he found in one of their underground warehouses were too professional for a crime syndicate production.

"Hammerhead's only interested in reaching his goal of controlling the city." Daredevil murmured in thought, placing a hand on his chin. "Either he's stolen them himself or associating with another syndicate."

"Then he'll probably eliminate his newfound allies—including the other Dons—after he gets what he wants." Deadpool added. "Which could escalate in an all-out gang war, getting New York in the middle of the chaos and hence why, _Spidey_ , you have no other choice but to help me. Hah!"

Peter scowled. "And I suppose you were paid highly to do this."

Deadpool didn't even wasted time denying it. "Yep." He chirped. "That aside, a new shipment's arriving before midnight just by the docks here in Hell's Kitchen. That's also why I'm here to ask help from my two best friends."

Before Daredevil could respond, Peter beat him to it. "We are _not_ best friends." He uttered with fervor. "You are, in fact, my worst enemy!"

Deadpool turned to Daredevil. Even though his mask hid his expression, it was somehow evident that he was looking at him with a fond gaze. "He sounds just like you during the first stages of our bromance."

"Enough." The other man said, voice taut. It was rather amusing to see how much simple words can pain the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. "What kind of weapons exactly are in this shipment?"

"Don't exactly know, don't exactly care." Deadpool shrugged, walking up to the edge. "But if you really want to know, you gotta go."

The other two vigilantes fell into a quiet contemplation. Daredevil wasn't particularly keen in interfering in another syndicate's business, not when he's already has his own plate full with the Hand still on the loose somewhere in the city's crack and crevice.

But if they get at least a clue of the syndicate Hammerhead could possibly be working with, it could lead to valuable information involving the organization. Besides, a somewhat steady peace has fallen over Hell's Kitchen since Fisk's arrest despite the numerous problems that followed after. He'd be fooling himself if this new catastrophe waiting to unfold won't cause a domino effect on the rest of the city.

Peter seemed to have already made up his mind, begrudgingly. "Fine," He muttered, uncrossing his arms. "I'm good to go. What about you?"

Matt inaudibly replied with a nod. They turned to Deadpool who was looking at them with glee and had brought out his gun.

"No killing." Daredevil sternly reminded, lowering his tone.

"Fine, I solemnly swear not to un-alive anyone. Plus, this is just for a cool scene." Deadpool brought the gun to the side of his face. "New York's finest just got a whole lot finer.

Team Red's back on—"

"Wade," Daredevil's jaw twitched, _"enough."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What could go wrong?
> 
> I hope this was worth the wait. A three-month "break" really does a number on your writing skills but I couldn't let this month (and year) end without publishing a chapter.
> 
> Online classes has officially started last October and it's been driving me to the brink of emptiness if it weren't for this holiday break.
> 
> Anyhow, I'd like to talk about one of the best authors I've known here on AO3, her username is TheGraytigress. She wrote some of the best stories here on this platform. I personally loved her stories about Steve and Natasha as well as the platonic ones with just general Avengers family bonding, she's also probably one of the most hardworking I've seen in this platform considering the sheer word count and quality of a lot of her stories.
> 
> Hence why, and unfortunately, I was surprised to know that she had left the platform a few months ago due to the backlash of some readers about the author's portrayal of Bucky in a particular story--according to someone from Reddit anyway. I'm all for constructive criticism but there's a line between that and harassing a writer because they didn't like how their own story was being told.
> 
> Hopefully, she's doing okay now and know that there are a whole lot more who love reading their stories than the opposite.
> 
> (Here are the stories her genuine readers managed to save. I got this from Reddit:  
> https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/1jOrRqazyQ52VNCZrksYhx9-x9XHCYfzl )
> 
> Thank you for reading this chapter. I'll try to make time for writing the next one (God, I hope that I will have time, online classes are driving me nuts).
> 
> Leave kudos, thoughts, or comments, and I'll see you guys on the next chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> Brain: Did you just... did you just publish another story?  
> Me: Yes.  
> Brain: Don't you have like two other unfinished works?  
> Me: Yes.  
> Brain: And?!  
> Me: ...yes.


End file.
